Leader
by Harmonious Cannons
Summary: The mother in Molly reaches out to a grieving child. Harry starts worrying about Dumbledore once he sees the hand, and decides that they need a contingency plan. Over a bowl of too hot onion soup, the course of the war is changed. Voldemort is faced with an actual adversary in the form of the Order of the Phoenix. Mentors Bill, Moody, and Fleur. Re: Ch. 9 One Shot Compilation
1. Mothers, Friends and Fears

**LEADER**

The story follows canon till HBP. It will be strictly T-rated, with implied adult activities. The pairings are not important, however, to those who are bothered by Harmony, you probably will not like that part of the story.

I was working on **'The Great Manipulator'** , but this story was churned out, with two more chapters at a stretch, and I had said I would write this story in 2018 when I posted this first chapter before.

I hope you like it.

 _The original conversation between Molly and Harry is largely replaced._

* * *

 **Mothers, Fears and Friends**

As Harry sat at the table in the Burrow's kitchen, relishing the excellent (if a bit too hot) onion soup, he couldn't shake off the uneasy feeling that the evening's events left him with.

That Dumbledore hadn't told Harry about his intentions with regards Slughorn, but had instead expected unquestioning compliance once again, made him angry. But then Dumbledore was old, too old perhaps to ever change his ways. It had not bothered him as much as what had preceded that.

Dumbledore had never so much as bothered to check up on him, as he had admitted when he had told Harry about the Prophecy. Yet he had personally come over to pick him from the Dursleys. Whilst there, he had used magic, and had had Harry summon Kreacher. Then he had proceeded to use magic against the Dursleys as well, having also upbraided them. A small part of Harry had felt a thrill of guilty pleasure at that, another had simmered in resentment that it had taken Dumbledore so many years to finally realise that he had never been happy with them, and a third, cynically realist part of him recognised that Dumbledore wouldn't have done it if he had no reason.

He imagined himself in Dumbledore's place, having done what that man had done, and imagined another child in his own place. The idea that he had failed another person so horribly was indigestible to him, but he wondered what kind of a situation would force him to take such desperate actions. What had prompted Dumbledore to worry about little people like him?

A very startling idea revealed itself, when he coupled his observations with something else: the dead hand. Was it possible that, perhaps, the hand wasn't the only part of Dumbledore that was dying? Was it possible that he was setting his affairs in order?

Molly Weasley was sitting down opposite the boy she had come to think of as one o her own over the years. True, she had not had so much contact with the boy as to put herself in Lily Potter's place. But Harry had provided Ron with a steady friendship during the boy's early teenage years, and had then saved her darling daughter from certain death. Any mother, and particularly a very maternal lady like Molly, would be too hard-pressed to not care for the boy whom many pitied, many hated, many revered, but few truly knew, as her own son.

She saw the expressions flitting rapidly across Harry's face. She worried about him. The school years, a period of time that for Molly was something to fondly remember, were worse than unkind to Harry, and this last loss of Sirius could have been a loss too far. She wanted to console him, to embrace him and let him grieve as she was sure his mother would have. And that was where she was unsure as to how she should proceed. After all, she was not his mother, and Sirius was someone who was, legally, closer to Harry than she was. Yet, she couldn't ignore his present turmoil.

"Something on your mind, Harry?" she asked.

Harry looked up, startled. He gave her a weak smile and just shook his head.

Molly had dealt with her fair share of boys unwilling to speak, and though grief was not a factor in that, she decided to do what she usually did to bring them out. "Harry? You know that you can talk to me, don't you? Whatever it is about, including...well, including Sirius, you can talk to me. I am here to listen."

The mention of Sirius brought up a massive grimace of sorrow on Harry's face. He looked down towards his soup and nodded in a subdued manner. Molly couldn't help it. She sat down next to Harry and gave him a one-armed hug. It was a moment, a long one at that, before Molly found Harry breaking down. There were not many tears, but there was the anguish.

"Let it out Harry. Let it all out..." she said soothingly.

It was a full five minutes before Harry had calmed down.

"Better?" asked Molly.

Harry only blushed and looked away. "Than...Thank you Mrs. Weasley," he mumbled. "And sorry..."

"Harry. You don't have to ever apologise to anyone for being as human as any of us. Do you understand?"

She only saw him nod reluctantly. She stayed quiet as he ate more soup. There was no point pressing him and overwhelming him. He would speak when he comfortable become would. A while later Harry asked a question.

"Do you know Horace Slughorn?"

Molly couldn't help the moue of distaste that immediately adorned her face. She was rewarded with a tentative smile for that. She allowed for the change of topic, for the boy was at least talking now. "I do. I cannot honestly say that I liked that man much," she replied. "He taught us when I was in school."

He gulped, nodded and waved his spoon at her as he agreed. "He is going to return to Hogwarts. Professor Dumbledore took me along to convince him. Must have been one of those Defence Professors who resigned, though I must say, he doesn't look like much. He's got fitness issues."

"Why would Slughorn teach Defence? He is a Potions Master!"

"Has something happened to Snape?"

Molly was able to suppress the disapproval at the glee that laced Harry's tone as he asked the question. While she disapproved of them talking this way about any teacher, she knew that it wasn't just her children who gave such a response. Almost every person young enough to have learnt from Severus gave a similar response. "No. To the best of my knowledge, Snape is very much alright."

"Oh." One syllable could portray such a wealth of disappointment, really. "Well, knowing our luck, he might end up with the Defence position." He seemed so gutted by the idea that Molly decided to not voice her thoughts that that might be the exact thing that would happen. "Well, there still is the annual event during which the Defence professor is killed, sacked, memory charmed to within an inch of his life, revealed as an imposter or forced to live her life out with a massive fear of horses. I can live with that, I suppose." He sighed. "Dumbledore lied to me by omission again."

"He does do that." Harry looked up at her in surprise. She snorted and shook her head. "Really Harry, do you think we don't see that Dumbledore has far too many secrets? We have asked him, begged him to divulge more. We all forget the fact that he has kept secrets all his life, whether it is regarding his apprenticeship with Flamel and his work on alchemy, or his part in the two wars. He is too old, too rigid to change. However, he is also the person _we_ have grown up seeing as an authority figure. It's difficult for us to go against that, or to distrust him."

Most people would have cringed at the morbidity regarding the DADA Professors, but then Molly herself had gone through seven Professors, and didn't find the subject worth commenting. The two lapsed into a comfortable silence as she ladled Harry more soup while he cut himself some bread. It was normal for her. Barring the twins and Ron, she had now been in this position for every single one of her boys – and, she remembered with a pang, even for Sirius and Remus the year before. Sirius, if one put aside the twelve years in Azkaban, was stuck being twenty one, as old as Percy was now. In spite of their many quarrels, she missed the man. And she knew that Harry missed him more than anyone could guess.

She retrieved herself from her musings and focussed on the boy sitting at the table. He was still pensive and worried. It was the same thing that she had seen a little while before. If at all, her explanation about Dumbledore had only made the expression more pronounced. The worry lines were now very prominent on his face. She couldn't point to any one reason. With the war, everyone was worried.

Out of the blue, Harry suddenly had a question. "Do magicals rely on instincts, Mrs. Weasley?"

"We do, yes. Why?"

He shrugged as he chewed on his bread silently. Thank heavens, but she wouldn't have to correct the bad habit of talking and eating in Harry as she needed to with Ron. "It's...nothing."

"Harry. Don't become like Dumbledore."

"His habit of keeping secrets kills people, Mrs. Weasley, just as my habit of following my instincts does," he retorted tersely. Evidently being compared to Dumbledore was not a compliment.

"Don't be absurd. Your instincts saved Arthur. Your instincts saved Ginny. Your instincts saved the Philosopher's Stone."

"And they also killed Sirius."

"And that's where you are wrong. They weren't your _instincts_ , were they? It was just a vision You-Know-Who sent. I doubt you even heeded your instincts. You thought with the fear first, Harry," she pointed out simply. She could see he was still unconvinced. "Harry, let me tell you this. We are simple people. We think with our hearts. In your place, at your age, I doubt there would be anyone who'd react in any other way. I know I wouldn't."

Molly Weasley was not the greatest witch that ever lived, nor was she the wisest woman. But she was a mother, and that particular post has no comparisons.

"Thank you, Mrs. Weasley."

He smiled at the boy. "So tell me, what is worrying you? Is it whatever Dumbledore to you in his office?"

Harry jerked up in apprehension. Molly just patted his back. "He told us that he wanted you to keep it secret for the most part, but that if you so chose, and when you so chose, you would tell us. He asked us to support you. I do not see any reason to not do so." She shifted a bit and fidgeted before adding, "He also asked us to not mention it unless you did so first."

"I...I am not ready yet, Mrs. Weasley. I thought about it and – and... I...it is..."

"It is still overwhelming. I understand. But that is not the only thing worrying you."

"No," admitted Harry.

"Tell me."

"I don't know how I should say it."

"Starting at the beginning always works."

"Has Dumbledore been tutoring you?"

Molly laughed lightly. "Harry, I have drawn out the stories of teenage escapades, crushes, pranks, and everything else. You have a different situation, but you're no different from the rest of my boys."

Harry couldn't help but be happy at her implication. "I don't have proof. It's just a hunch. It's what..."

"...it's what your instincts tell you. Still, try me."

Molly was not going to let that go then.

"It's about the Order."

"Harry, you shouldn't worry yourself about..." Molly started reflexively, only to stop at the look of disappointment and resignation, coupled with the wry smile on Harry's face. He said nothing immediately. Molly just clutched at her face with her hands and sighed.

"It is okay, Mrs. Weasley."

She didn't reply immediately. Instead she exhaled noisily and looked at the boy in a woebegone manner. "No. It is not okay. I asked you, Harry. I should at least listen. It is just that I don't want you to have to fight, any of you. It is true, that Sirius and I disagreed about how much should be revealed to you, but then again, I still want you to keep your innocence, because I still see the boy of twelve eating breakfast at this table. Well I wanted that. It's all a pipe dream," she wistfully added, mostly to herself.

"I don't have much choice," he mumbled in response, but not loud enough for her to hear. "I understand, Mrs Weasley."

She smiled and then looked at him expectantly. Harry resumed eating, and then stopped as he felt her eyes on him. "What?"

"You were telling me something."

"It's about the Order," he reminded her cautiously.

"I know that it's about the Order, Harry. I don't want you to fight. That doesn't mean I won't listen."

He nodded slowly, and started slowly chewing on the bread, all the while looking at her warily. Molly cringed internally at the thought that her immediate response might have made him apprehensive. A moment later, his face relaxed. Apparently she had passed some sort of internal test.

"I think," Harry started slowly, "I think that the hand is only a part of the problems the Headmaster is facing. I think he is dying."

"WHAT?"

Harry cringed at her shout and Molly controlled herself. "I am sorry Harry. I didn't mean to shout at you, but I was shocked. No. I am terrified by the idea," she quickly pacified him. "Please explain, Harry."

So Harry haltingly told her about his (admittedly) rather vague reasons. When she frowned, he ended, "I said I have no proof!"

"No. I understand. But this is a big problem, Harry, and unfortunately, this is very much like Albus to hide his problems even if that hurts everyone. Thank you for telling me this."

"You won't tell anyone else, will you?"

"At the moment, no, I won't. However we might have to do some things as the Order collectively to find a way around that. I can't just up and go about asking people what we should do should Albus die."

"I understand."

She bowed her head and frowned at the table. Harry did say he had no proof, but even a contained but incurable curse at Albus' age was one of the things that could kill people anyway. At least they had caught this early. She looked at the boy and realised that in such a case people would look at him to do things. The Ministry already was, if the Prophet was anything to go by. Unfortunately, he was just a boy. His previous adventures notwithstanding, he was not equipped to do everything. It was time for the adults to step up. She was not very well-versed beyond managing the Headquarters. But she had decided that Harry was one of her own, so she would get him what help she could get.

"You said that Albus intends to give you lessons?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Let us see what it all is about. I will tell you this though. If what you say is true, the curse might start affecting his mind and he may say or do, or worse, insist that you do things a particular way. Don't worry. But be very cautious. Remus said he'd come around on your birthday. I will get Kingsley and Mad-Eye to come as well. They'll be able to guide you better."

The relaxing of Harry's face was its own reward for her.

"Thank you Mrs. Weasley," he said in a heartfelt manner.

"Never mind," she replied absently.

As Harry washed down the bread with the last dregs of soup, he asked, "Mrs. Weasley? Would you mind if I write to you during the year?"

"You shouldn't need to ask, Harry. I never insisted because I didn't want to intrude." She was happy though. Harry had warmed up to her enough to accept her in even a partially maternal role in his life.

Molly sat awake till Arthur arrived. She didn't broach the subject while Harry and he interacted, but Arthur knew his wife well enough to realise that she was troubled. They would talk later.

* * *

"Molly?" asked Arthur as she lay quietly but with a frown.

"Yes?"

"You have been too quiet."

Molly remained silent for a while, and Arthur knew not to disturb her while she attempted to articulate things, for it was a rare instance when Molly was unable to do so. When she did say what was bothering her, it became amply clear that it was the very idea and not the words themselves that were proving to be problematic.

"What happens if Albus dies?" She had promised Harry that she would not put it forth as something he was worried about just yet.

"Molly?" asked Arthur weakly.

"Leave it," she said shortly. "It's just a worry."

"No. Molly, what made you ask?"

"Leave it Arthur. It's just my mind imagining horrible things."

He nodded unhappily, unable to coax any more out of her at that moment. They didn't talk about that, thereafter, but it started the wheels turning in Arthur's mind – often the greatest enemy and the greatest ally of man. Arthur's mind painted horrible scenario after scenario and forced him to ask himself if they were doing enough.

* * *

The following hours of light saw Harry attempting to speak past a bushy brown mane and deciding that it was better to shut up than have Hermione angry at him if her hair went into his mouth. And wasn't that a fairly revolting thought?

Other than their stuttering attempts at mentioning Sirius by reminding each other not to mention Sirius, with a few reproachful glares about the general insensitivity tossed in by Hermione and Harry in place of spice to negate the blandness of the 'discussion', it was a very usual welcome home. Ginny even started complaining about something in the 'I-can-talk-around-Harry' mode that she had started bearing the year before. There was the usual fight between the siblings. It seemed to revolve around a mysterious 'she', and Hermione seemed to be on the redheaded girl's side. The newly awoken boy could only stare at them in confusion as they went at it.

That was, of course, until Fleur came into the room.

 _There should be a rule,_ Harry thought as he rebooted his brain after having his cheeks kissed by the entirely too beautiful woman, _against Veela bustling into the rooms of unsuspecting people early in the morning._ At least he didn't become a drooling mess like Ron.

The short conversation that included her informing him of her impending nuptials to the eldest Weasley and Harry congratulating her was accompanied by the looks of barely constrained disapproval on the faces of Mrs. Weasley, Ginny and Hermione. It troubled him. Fleur was not that bad, once one tried to know her beyond the Veela. He couldn't understand why the three females seemed heavily perturbed by Fleur. He also couldn't reconcile himself with Ginny's oddly sharp and ... dare he say it, _bitchy ..._ comments about the woman.

"Wait just a minute, now. This may be a stupid question, but what exactly is your problem with her?" The three stopped and frowned at him.

"As I said, she is a cow. She is the exact opposite of Bill," Ginny reiterated.

"You said Bill is down-to-earth and she likes glamour. Really Ginny, I'd say you're being prejudiced. With the job he has, and the adventure it has, Bill is as close to glamour as possible in a magical job. So pull the other one. Why don't you like her?"

"She is much too young!" protested Molly.

"What difference does even a decade make a hundred years down the line?"

"I'd rather have Tonks marrying Bill."

"Does she want to? Does he want to?"

"Not you as well!" said Hermione bitterly.

"I suppose you like the way Phlegm says ''Arry,' do you?" asked Ginny scornfully.

"It is not about me or about what I like or wish for," replied Harry tersely. "If anything depended on that, then my parents and Sirius would be alive, we'd never have had a Voldemort, I'd never have a link to him, there wouldn't have been that stupid tournament, and Pettigrew would have been eaten by Mrs. Norris' predecessor in his schooldays," he hissed angrily.

That dimmed the atmosphere immediately. Harry realised that and ducked his head. "I am sorry."

"Harry," started Hermione, her eyes tearing up a bit.

"No. I am sorry." He took a deep breath, before looking at the three women with frank disapproval. "Besides you're forgetting the most important thing. You are judging her based on _your_ jealousies and insecurities," here he looked at the younger girls, "and _your_ prejudices, which influence them," he continued, looking at Molly and then again at the girls. The three women flushed.

"What **_I_** think doesn't matter. But for what it is worth, I think that you're being a bit too obtuse. She isn't marrying any of you so your opinion doesn't matter _much_ either. _Bill and Fleur probably make each other happy, and love each other._ Shouldn't that be enough? Are you saying Bill is too stupid to choose, if he can see past the Veela? You are behaving just like Dumbledore, deciding that you know best. And worse still, **you** 'd rather Tonks marry Bill, but have you **_asked_** **_her_**?"

There was a bit of an uncomfortable silence where Molly, Ginny and Hermione studiously avoided everyone's gazes while Ron gaped at his best mate. Harry too looked away, slightly ashamed. He had unloaded some of the residual anger he held towards Dumbledore on them, if it was without the histrionics and with more than just a bit of forced calmness.

"What's got into you, mate? That was more direct and calmer than you were last year," Ron blurted out. The he smirked and added, "At least you've got an emotional range larger than a teaspoon."

"I have paid for my anger, misjudgement and for the inability of others to be direct and forthcoming when it was required. People die when that happens. I'll be damned if I repeat those mistakes. I hate it when people make choices for others when they don't have the right."

Harry then chose to avoid the four gazes that followed him as he left the bed and went about his morning ablutions.

The dressing down seemed to work. Ginny and Hermione seemed to be making efforts to not antagonise Fleur behind her back and were being politer, it seemed. Molly was less vocal with her disapproval, and also toned down the passive aggression, and instead chose to observe the French witch. Fleur seemed happier for it, and gave Harry a nod and smile in thanks.

He just shrugged in response. He didn't realise it then, but he had just earned two strong supporters. And he also didn't realise that when he stated his opinion and explained it, and people had stopped to think it over, he had taken another step down a path he was too reluctant to walk down, but already had strode down before.

The Prophecy remained a secret. He also never found out Tonks' problems – not that he could have done much about that. The OWL results that arrived with Harry's captain's badge later that afternoon washed the subject away. The mood was too upbeat in the Burrow for maudlin thoughts.

To the four who'd heard the outburst (yes, even to Ron), however, the resentment against Dumbledore was very obvious. The memory stayed with them long past that day.

* * *

Harry's decision to not divulge the Prophecy played more on his mind than he'd have believed. It tormented him at night and marred his waking hours. It hounded him and nagged at him. The Weasley clock taunted him in parallel. The combined effects were shown through the changes it wrought.

He spent less free time in the Weasley Orchard playing Quidditch, and instead, bugged Bill to teach him curse-breaking and spell detection and stuff. Bill in turn directed him first to Hermione and Fleur to learn at least the basics of Rune and Arithmancy. It wasn't because he knew what he had to do, far from that. It just gave him something to do, instead of getting lost in what ifs and only ifs. It also prepared him with a list of esoteric curses that he would know only in theory till he went to Hogwarts.

Hermione was sound in the Theory, but Fleur had used it in the field before and knew which parts were practically important. Runes, Harry realised ruefully, would have been the right option. Arithmancy didn't quite lend itself to easy learning, since it held quite a few theoretical concepts, but where Hermione could explain to him the rationale and the whys and hows, Fleur provided him with the cheats to work around that academic impediment. By his birthday three weeks after he arrived at the Burrow, Harry had learnt to hide things in plain sight, plan protective schemes for very small objects and in general had developed the spatial awareness and instincts to work with advanced magic.

The two women two formed a bond as Hermione, who had judged Fleur without truly knowing her, found a kindred spirit as far as being faced by prejudices and yearning for knowledge went, while Fleur found Hermione to be a witty woman shackled by her insecurities, but nonetheless someone she could truly call a friend. It was not unusual to see the two sometimes indulging in girl-talk.

Harry was by no means an expert beginner, but he now had an insight into the working of a curse-breaker's craft. Hermione had been forced to eat her words about wizarding logic. It wasn't absent. It just was the sole prerogative of people like Bill.

* * *

"Harry?" It was Hermione.

It struck Hermione that he had no longer the wish to waste time over what Ron took for granted. It had led to a quarrel between Ron and her because she and Fleur were spending more time with Harry over books. Ron's intentions weren't bad. He wanted Harry to be free after his yearly exile with the Dursleys. He, however, hadn't realised that Harry's priorities had changed. It had taken Bill to break that fight and set Ron straight. Harry had studiously maintained a distance. It was what he did when he usually had something to hide. Harry maintained a distance when they spoke of families. That was enough for Hermione to know that something was amiss.

Harry was poring over a few books that Fleur, a very hard taskmistress, had ordered him to go through for a particular question he had been stuck on. He looked up and gave her a strained smile.

"Hello Hermione."

She smiled back and pulled up a chair and peeped into his notebook. It was one of many lying on the table with bunches of refills for ball-pens. She couldn't complain about Harry's determination to learn once he decided that he wanted to. Then again she knew that after the first task.

"How's it going?"

"I am stuck at the interlaid runes because of the ties. Once I get them separated, I'll translate the whole set. Of course I can only translate the symbols yet. You said the contextual grammar was yet to come."

"It's very good progress though."

He just shrugged uncomfortably.

"Really Harry, you know me. I am not given to charitable assessments in matters of such importance. This is something to be proud of." She received just another smile, but there was the astonishment evident in his eyes at her approval. Did her approval, even one so minor, mean that much? She shook that thought away. She was reading too much into it probably.

"I hope it is as you say," he offered.

They sat in companionable silence as he went back to his work and she peered at the notebook and the writer by turns.

"What changed, Harry?"

"Everything did, Hermione. I have to change. I will tell you, just not now. There are a few people I trust to help me. They need to know."

"You don't trust me to help you?"

Harry looked at her as if she was rather daft. "Of course I do. However you aren't the only one who can help me. And you are not the only one who I think deserves to know. I want – no, I need Ron, Ginny, Luna and especially, Neville to know why they fought by my side, and to have the chance to choose to stay away if they wish to. I need help from people who know better. Mrs. Weasley mentioned Moody, Moony and Kingsley. I need all the people together."

"Oh." She just sat there. "Harry? Is this about the Prophecy?"

This time, her best friend set down the stationery, and looked at her in right earnest. He looked scared now, scared but determined. "Yes."

"It's down to you, isn't it?"

Sometimes Harry wondered whether a person could be too clever. "Yes. Yes, it will be me or him."

"Well it's not as if we didn't know."

Of all the things that he had expected, it wasn't this. "WHAT?"

"Why is that a surprise to you? I mean, through the years you have been his single most important target. He said so both from the Diary and when he captured you in the fourth year. To my mind it only answers why he went after your family at all and to go to the extent of going past a Fidelius charm."

"You mean?"

"Honestly Harry, it was the obvious inference once we entered into a trap and the battle took place in the Hall of Prophecies."

Harry was aghast. Was it so simple, really? But if she knew all along, or at least, since that moment in the Department of Mysteries, why did she not broach this subject before?

"Him or you, as you say, means that you must come to terms with eventually having to one day take a life..."

"...or have mine taken."

"No. I believe in you. I have faith in you, Harry. You can do it. I wouldn't say your past adventures prove it, because you should never have had to go through those ordeals. But you did get through them. You can get through this. Have faith in yourself for a change."

"But people die Hermione! People die when I am convinced!" he whispered in urgent distress. "I am at fault!"

"Sirius **_was_** your fault, but only _to an extent,_ " she told him, shocking him again. She was obviously being severely objective. "It is not a mistake that someone else in your position would not have made. Sirius would have done the same. I would too, for the people I love. It was your fault that you panicked and played into You-Know-Who's hands. It was Dumbledore's fault that he wouldn't come clean with you. It was Snape's as well that he took too long to inform the Order when he knew what we were about to do. It was also Sirius' fault that he did not take the fight seriously. As you said before, it is not all about you. Learn. Learn from this Harry."

By the end of her declaration, she was cupping his face and practically boring into his eyes.

"But you were hurt! You could have died!"

"I chose to follow you Harry, knowing what we might face. I have read so much about nonverbal incantations, and I didn't realise that he would use that. That is the only thing I'd change, Harry. I would stun him. But I would follow you again and again, so long as you need me."

Hermione wondered whether she was getting through to him. The next moment she was gathered up from her standing position towards Harry as he initiated a hug, a very needy one at that, for the first time that she could remember. She felt that he was clutching to a lifeline.

"I couldn't imagine ever not needing you, Hermione. I can't imagine anything good without you!" The words were muffled by her midriff into which he spoke, but the intensity wasn't.

Unbidden, her hands went around his head as she clutched him closer to her. The boy who could scold her for her pettiness and could throw himself at new subjects with the same intensity as fighting Voldemort needed _her_ just as strongly. She stood there, threading her fingers through his hair, relishing in the feeling of being needed and needing someone as they did each other.

Sometime later, she was cupping his face again as his chin rested on her sternum. There was some uncertainty in his eyes, something she couldn't bear.

"Doesn't it disgust you?"

"That you might have to take that particular life?" she asked. "No."

"No?"

"Harry, you know that I need to rationalise everything, don't you?"

"Yes."

"I thought long and hard about this. Do you know what I realised?"

"What?"

"I realised that you won't be killing someone living."

Harry's arms loosened a bit as he leaned back with a frown. "I don't understand."

"Harry, you know how living beings are born, don't you?" she asked with a blush.

Harry blushed but nodded.

"Well, he wasn't born that way. Riddle was, but Riddle died in 1981. Now only his spirit remains, in a body that is not truly alive, but rather, is a magical construct. And even if that was not the case, I cannot imagine any victory where **_he_** does not die. And," she added for emphasis, "I have been there since the Troll, and even after Quirrel. What makes you think this might change things?"

Harry looked at her in sheer wonder. She had cut away at his guilt that had risen due to over-thinking about the future. He told her something else that was eating away at his mind.

"What was that?"

"I tried to torture Bellatrix."

Hermione was a bit torn. She was taking her time to analyse as usual. On one hand, it was an immediate reaction. Harry was no stranger now to the Unforgivables, either as the caster or as the victim. Feeling Harry start to draw away at her silence, she held on and asked, "Did it work?"

"No. I am not sure whether or not it is a good thing. I really wanted to kill her, but couldn't. I couldn't bring myself to do it." He seemed almost ashamed of it.

"She taunted you, didn't she? She made it sound as if you couldn't do it because you didn't care enough for Sirius?" Harry's face hiding in her midriff again was answer enough. "Harry, she is a mad woman. Her words do not matter. You care, I know. You care too much. That is why you can't bring yourself to truly harm or hate another." He relaxed in her arms. She caressed his head again. "And I care about you too. I care about you, I have faith in you and I will be on your side. I will do so as long as I am alive, whether that is many years from now, or at this moment."

"DON'T!" he growled. "Don't say that. No. No. Don't even think of that. If you're gone then there will be nothing. I will have nothing, nobody. No. I won't be able to survive that." He was beseeching her. As if to ensure that she was still there, he held onto her tighter, as children would hold their teddy, but with far more emotion. Her fall at the Ministry played in his mind over and over and he shook in terror.

"Harry. Harry!" Hermione couldn't get through to him now, really, and she took a drastic measure. She kissed him on his cheek, longer than would be considered normal for just a female best friend. She peered into his eyes and saw that they were clouded with fear. "I am here, Harry. I am going nowhere. I am here."

The moment was seen. For Molly, she recognised love for what it was. She had seen Arthur experience such terror during the first war. And she had experienced it over Christmas. Just like nobody but Arthur and she could calm each other, only Hermione could calm Harry. She would be lying if she felt that she never particularly wished that Hermione would choose Ron or that it didn't matter to her. But then as Harry had pointed out to her and the girls in much the same way as Bill or Charlie would have, it was not her decision. She knew what she saw. Harry's Heart was taken long before he knew to give it away.

And now, now that she knew what fate awaited him, she couldn't, as much as she wanted to disapprove of the choice of either of the two or wonder what if, truly, wholly and completely wish any other way. They didn't know it yet, but there was more to them than they could see. It was more than just a simple show of affection, even if it was without any display of the true extent of their emotions or any acknowledgement of the same.

* * *

"Potter!" growled Mad-Eye, startling Harry a bit.

"What did Mrs Weasley ask you to check last year at Headquarters during the Party?"

Mad-Eye smiled a grotesque, twisted smile. "Very good, boy," he laughed. "She wanted me to ensure that the creature was a Boggart." Harry nodded. "She said you wanted to talk to us about something important?"

"Yes."

Moody nodded and stalked away.

The party was decidedly sombre with all the news filtering in. There wasn't much to celebrate in a birthday while everybody was wondering when it would be their turn to die.

"Shall we just start?"

The other five of the Ministry Six, Arthur and Molly, Bill and Fleur, Remus, Moody and Kingsley nodded and settled themselves.

"Alright, the first thing is that I need to tell you all, but especially Neville about the Prophecy."

Kingsley and Remus made to protest, but Harry shook his head. "They fought with me. On my part, they have earned the right to know. And Neville must know why he lost his parents. More importantly, I trust them." He didn't see it, but the other five sat straighter at that.

"What do you mean?" asked Neville.

"You will understand." He proceeded to relay to them everything he had learnt in Dumbledore's office that day.

"It could have been me?" asked Neville, thunderstruck.

"Yes."

Remus said nothing. He looked pensive for a while before bursting out, "This drivel killed my best friends and is now threatening you?"

"Yes."

"What do you need?"

"That is the point. I don't know. I don't know how to fight Voldemort. I don't know what I should know. I am just...me."

"Well, knowing more spells and actually being able to perform them will be useful," Ron pointed out.

"We need to know how he remained alive," Luna dreamily stated.

"And find a way to undo that," agreed Ginny.

"We?" asked Moody.

"We," Neville forcefully agreed. "If I know him, Harry asked to see us and tell us so that we could choose safety, but know why we are in danger. Well, I choose to stand by you as I am sure you'd have if it had been me in your place. And we don't even need to ask about Hermione."

"I wouldn't stop you, if you are sure," Kingsley stated in his calming, deep voice. "But the road ahead will be arduous."

"It will be for everyone," Hermione said simply. Kingsley nodded in acceptance. Everyone looked at Harry.

He took a few calming breaths. "Thank you. Thank you, all of you. Your support means more to me than you'll ever know." There were nods and smiles and a grunt in response. "This matter ties into the next thing I have to tell. Of us all, only Neville and Luna do not know about the Order."

"Potter!" shouted Moody in warning.

"Can it, Alastor," scolded Molly. She was treated to raised eyebrows and gapes.

" _You_ are supporting him?"

"My reaction when he first told me about what he will tell you all now was the same. I was wrong then and you are wrong now. What he will say is more important than anything else, and I say this while still wishing they needn't fight."

Harry nodded in thanks at Molly. "Suffice it to say that the Order is a group dedicated to fighting Voldemort. Dumbledore started it. Only adults who have passed out of Hogwarts can be members, therefore we aren't. My parents, Sirius and Neville's parents were and everyone else here is a member. That is all I know. Then again, you could find this information in newspapers. They just won't name the group."

That cut off all protests. The adults hadn't realised this.

"At the moment, the Order is practically the only resistance. A lot of it, however, depends on Dumbledore. And that is the unfortunate thing. Dumbledore is dying."

"WHAT?" It was the common question that erupted from every mouth save Molly.

"He doesn't have proof," she broke in. "But Albus has been cursed when he was off doing Merlin knows what. And that hand that looks dead? It hasn't healed. Whether that curse will kill him, we do not know, and the evidence is all just instinct, but at his age, a non-healing cure could very well kill him. We can't say when."

"He also attacked my relatives. He kept asking me to forgive me, and he was being too urgent. I don't know whether I am right, and I'd rather that I'm not, but we can't be prepared enough."

"But wouldn't he tell us?" Arthur asked uncertainly.

"Would he? When has Albus said anything directly, Weasley?" Moody asked. "Albus could be on his death bed and would say he is just feeling tired. He is too used to being the lone ranger who's the head of the Order only because he is the most powerful wizard alive and founded it." He took a swig from his hipflask and grunted. "Even if Potter is wrong, and the boy has a good head on his shoulders, so he mightn't be, we don't have a succession plan."

There was a protracted silence that was occasionally punctuated by an "Oh!" from Luna and a 'Bloody hell!' from Ron. The later opened his mouth to speak, but a glare from his mother quietened him as the younger lady was allowed to speak first.

"When the Brazilian Nifflewimpers' nest is threatened and they have babies within, they purposely take on the Ginger Eagles and allow themselves to be killed. In the meanwhile, the other of the pair escapes with the babies. Their nests, however, are connected to their magic and the trees' roots. So when the birds escape, the tree falls on the protecting bird, killing it. The Ginger Eagles think they win, because the Nifflewimper only takes up their space. The Ginger Eagles don't want to actually eat the Nifflewimpers. They just want to drive them away or kill them so that they are not in their space."

"WHAT?" Moody shouted. He was completely thrown off by this weird description.

"I think I understand," ventured Ron. "If Harry is right, Dumbledore won't tell us."

"Why?"

"Ron," Arthur reprimanded.

"No Arthur. Let him speak," Remus suggested.

"This is like chess, see? Dumbledore is right now King. He is the figurehead who doesn't fight, or move unless under check, but if we lose him, we lose everything."

Kingsley and Mad-Eye leaned forward in interest.

"So, if Dumbledore is dying, one thing he could do is replacing himself with someone else. I would say Harry, but that'd be wrong because of that Prophecy. Harry has to fight. I mean no offence, but nobody else is big enough a figurehead to cause public panic to go down a bit."

"None taken" intoned the three senior Order members.

"So he is springing a trap on You-Know-Who. Lull him into thinking that he has won by sacrificing the rook, a deceptively important piece, but not the most important one, disguised as the last protection to the king, while keeping the other rook, knights, bishops and the queen in seemingly unplayable positions. Here Dumbledore would be the rook, and our world would be the King," he explained. Everyone nodded at the analogy. "The King would be constantly under check. To do that, he could make his death fairly public. You-Know-Who believes that he has won, while we go underground and chip away at his forces. That's what Luna was saying, I think. It depends on whether he is actually dying," he finished lamely.

Luna smiled brightly at him and nodded.

"You git," swore Bill. "If you actually used those brains, you could be as great as Dumbledore."

Ron actually blushed.

"It's just so wrong on so many levels!" seethed Hermione.

"It is. I am not saying this is correct. I am just predicting," Ron temporised. With his confidence boosted, he was able to hold his own.

"He's right lass," Moody concurred. "You should think of a career in politics, boy! You'll have the coots dancing to your tune!"

Ron seemed to go as red as his hair. HE had never been praised this much.

"It's just that Dumbledore hasn't taken into consideration Voldemort's greed. If he is provided with an inch, he will take the whole land. He's quite like Hitler that way," Harry pointed out.

"Who's Hitler?"

"A murderous monster of a man who was the muggles' Voldemort and Grindelwald rolled into one," Remus answered.

Everyone shivered at the very idea.

"Sometimes, however, when the chicks, after growing fully, return to the old nest, something bad happens. The nests are often so damaged that they exert all their magic for it and die in the process. For them their home is the most important thing."

"No! You don't mean it!" Ron shouted. He didn't realise how he fit into the role of Luna's translator, but he did.

"You know it Ronald. To the Nifflewimpers only their home is important. Whatever they need to sacrifice, they do."

Given that Ron was the only person who had somewhat made sense of whatever she said, all eyes turned to him.

"She," he started then gulped. "She thinks that Dumbledore only wants to buy Harry time till he can fight. I don't know whether she is speculating upon his plans or a possibility, but she thinks Harry might have to sacrifice everything... _everything._ "

"NO!" cried Hermione, the loudest voice among the multitude that protested.

"It might come to that," Harry replied resignedly into the quiet that followed. "I've wondered about that often."

"Well, Albus does make too many mistakes. This will be one of them. We shall find another way," Arthur forcefully countered, rejecting the idea completely.

There were grumbles and growls of agreement.

"So what do we do now?" demanded Ginny.

"We could confront Dumbledore," suggested Bill.

"You expect him to be truthful?" asked Remus with a mirthless snort.

"The way you people speak of Dumbledore, it would seem he will scuttle everything. Why not just keep a plan at the ready and use it if or when needed?" asked Neville pointing out the elusive obvious.

"The question now remains is this: what do we do at school?" asked Ginny.

"We should carry on with the DA. We can't make it an official club, but we can still keep it as a by-invitation-only study group," suggested Hermione.

"Why should we not make it official?" challenged Ginny.

"Because that would mean anyone could ask to join and we wouldn't be able to refuse. I don't want the current Slytherins in with us. I wouldn't trust them ever. If they really wanted to be seen as different, they would have made contact."

"Some are from the neutrals, lass!" Moody pointed out.

"Are they, really? They stay in the background, hiding behind Malfoy. If they were truly neutrals they would have sought to connect with both sides and chosen those who'd win."

"Study group it is!" Ron chimed in.

"We can actually do something else," started Harry. He had remained quietly attentive while the others spoke and now they listened. "We can keep our eyes open."

"What do you mean?"

"It is an open secret what Malfoy's greatest ambition is. His father has already attempted to _cleanse_ Hogwarts of muggleborns. What if he has some initiation rite?"

"Malfoy is too young Harry."

"No," Remus corrected. "It can't work both ways, Hermione. If he is too young, then so are you. That hasn't stopped them. And from what I know of him, he seems to be the sort to think of Lucius as a martyr and might have vengeful ideas."

Hermione nodded in an unconvinced and unhappy manner.

"Don't think that he is too young to kill or have killed, Hermione," Kingsley said. "Eight of my classmates were marked in our sixth year."

"So we keep an eye out?"

"Yes," agreed Kingsley. "But we need secure communications."

"And someone secure to handle the communications and store the information," agreed Harry.

"I could do it," volunteered Molly.

"No. Forgive me Molly, but you haven't learnt the mind arts. I think Mad-Eye or I would be the best."

"Is Mad-Eye good enough? I mean Occlumency should be able to protect one from the Imperius," pointed out Fleur.

"They first gave me a massive concussion, lass, when Crouch banished a stone at the back of my head."

"Oh."

"Why couldn't Fleur do it? She has a part time job!" suggested Ron.

"I wouldn't mind."

"We shall decide that then," Kingsley declared. Then he paused. He turned to his fellow members and with a smirk asked, "Did you realise that these six just sat on an Order meeting where we accomplished more than we usually do?"

There was light laughter from the youngsters at what they perceived to be humour, though it in fact was reality.

* * *

"Hey Bill?" called Harry.

"Come in mate," Bill greeted his unofficial apprentice.

"May I trouble you a bit?"

"You are troublesome Harry. Being polite doesn't allay that much," the eldest Weasley brother answered.

Harry glared at him half-heartedly. "Laugh it up. Actually this is about something Luna said. We don't know how Voldemort lived. It reminded me of something. You know in Gin's first year she was possessed when he wanted to leach away her life and take her body to resurrect himself?"

"WHAT?"

"You don't know?"

"Harry this is the first time I am hearing about this!"

"You don't know that Ginny was possessed by Voldemort? They were in Egypt with you immediately after the year and _you_ didn't know?"

"Harry. Tell Me Everything."

So Harry told him everything. Bill became paler and paler by the minute. By the end, he had consumed a full glass of firewhiskey.

"WHY DOESN'T ANYONE TELL ME ANYTHING?" he whispered angrily.

"I didn't know that you didn't know the whole story Bill. I'd have told you otherwise."

"Good Heavens! Do you know what that thing was Harry?"

"No."

"No. I didn't expect you to know either. I won't tell you, yet, because your Occlumency capability is not up to the mark." Harry grimaced and looked away. "Hey, none of that now," Bill scolded lightly. "You need to know why you can't know, yet. 'Yet' is the operative word here. But suffice it to say that you have set me on a possibly correct trail. You have my word, Harry. I will help you defeat Voldemort, if that's the last thing I do."

"Thanks Bill. There's actually one more thing. Can you take me to Gringotts?"

"Why?"

"Well we know how Dumbledore loves to understate things, don't we? He said Sirius left me a bit of gold." He hurried on as Bill's expression turned disappointed. "No, listen. Remus has been having problems with the werewolves. If there is any way to grow the money through aggressive investments or something, and with a few donations, we could hire a Potions Master to distribute Wolfsbane. Maybe they can be hired in some manner."

"Okay? It's not that easy, you know. They can't invest in the muggle world. They just have an account with the Bank of England which they use for the monetary exchange."

"Oh. Look, I don't know these things much. I just want to level the playing field a bit, and enticing the moderate werewolves with the potion seemed logical."

"I understand. I'll see what we can do."

"Thanks."

"Say Harry, now that we are on the subject, I meant to ask you this. What do you want to do with Headquarters?"

"I don't want to live there."

"I didn't think so."

"What is going on at the moment?"

"It is closed. It will be back for the Order's use on September the first."

"Dumbledore asked me that day and I allowed him to use it. I thought you'd use it immediately."

"Yes. But we didn't want to. Not so soon anyway."

"Ah."

"So, what do you want us to do? Once we open it up, people like old Dung will clean it up."

"He was cleaning it up while Sirius was alive. I don't want that man near Grimmauld Place," Harry hissed caustically. "There's no guarantee that he mightn't have done some thieving already is there?"

"There isn't," Bill replied heavily. "You're right. When I said it was closed, I meant closed in the terms of normal, respectable people."

"Then there's not much to be salvaged."

"I don't know. Sirius might have left you something there."

"I trust your judgement Bill. If you think it is something Sirius might have left for me, keep it aside and give it to me. Otherwise, use that place. I don't know how many cursed objects might be lying there, though."

"Do you want me to take care of them?"

"Will you?"

"Happily," agreed Bill. "That place is crawling with dark stuff. At least I can have some tomb raiding practice. I have been set onto a desk job here."

"Knock yourself out then. Just be cautious and take someone along. That treacherous bit of vermin still inhabits that place."

"Kreacher," Bill muttered. "I will be careful."

Fleur came into the room at that moment and stopped and blanched upon seeing Harry. He smirked at the couple and said, "Yes Bill. Do be _careful_. Have a **_good_** night!"

Bill and Fleur just groaned. "You're too cheeky sometimes, you know that?" Bill asked rhetorically.


	2. Illusions of Normalcy

**An Illusion of Normalcy**

There will be no Weasley bashing. There will be unresolved anger aimed at Dumbledore. Snape will be treated the same way he was in book 6.

 **Some parts, in bold, are taken from the book 6. I do not own Harry Potter.**

* * *

The rest of the summer was spent catching up with their respective homework assignments, a few trips to Diagon Alley in disguise (a simple logical suggestion by Hermione that they stockpile Polyjuice Potion and use it while making large or peculiar purchases, saw more than one grimace of self-deprecation), many visits by Neville and Luna, and the gang occasionally helping the Twins out in their shop.

It was however, Harry's sessions with Bill that he thought to be most important. After their late-night conversation, Bill had taken more interest in teaching Harry ways to not be deceived. Through practical experience, he had learnt that Occlumency couldn't truly be taught – one cannot organise another person's mind. So instead, he focussed on trying to help Harry wade through his visions. He hadn't had one since the possession at the Ministry, but it made little sense to not be vigilant against any renewed attacks.

It had been a difficult start. Harry refused to even think of that vision and managed to force several memories to the surface instead of the vision, ironically, jerking into action a version of Occlumency. Still, Bill, who had taken up a mentor/older brother kind of role, had doggedly stayed at it, before Harry allowed him to see the memory through a wanded Legillimency spell.

"Is this truly necessary?"

"It is," the eldest Weasley brother had grimly replied. "I will be blunt. If I had known that you had such visions, I would have taught you this last summer. I have encountered several hallucination-causing spells and enchantments in tombs, and it is important to pick apart every vision."

They had no pensieve on hand to use, and were rather unsure about approaching Dumbledore for the same, so instead, after having seen and analysed the vision, Bill invited himself into Harry's mind, acting as a willing guide.

"The first thing you have to notice is that from the very start of these visions, you were never truly in control of your mind. Look at this memory of the snake biting Dad. You have no recollection of ever having any contact or thought of it; apart from the time you saw it in the graveyard that is. Yet you were there, a mute spectator to what it did.

"Now look at this vision. I am sorry," he added, with more than a touch of brotherly concern and compassion in his voice, as the mental-projection of Harry started to back away. "But you have to see. Next time, it could be Hermione or anyone else that you care about."

It was enough to galvanise Harry's stubbornness into not giving in to the fear and grief again.

"Look. Once again, you were transported right in. Once again you are looking at it through Voldemort's point of view. You have no recollection of ever arriving to this scene."

Harry nodded grimly as he compared the two visions and understood what Bill was pointing at.

"What do you think I am trying to tell?"

"Both times," answered Harry slowly, "I was first afraid that I was doing the act. I just let it happen that way because I couldn't think. I froze."

"Very good," agreed Bill. "That's a good first observation. From now on, every time you have such a vision, ask yourself how you ended up there. Last year, you were afraid that you were possessed fully, and you let that fear paralyse you. If you can't answer the question, you are in a dream or a vision and therefore not responsible for what happens, but you will **_probably_** be able to control things."

Harry nodded.

"The next thing to do, after you have ascertained the fact that it is not something that you are doing, is to look around and observe your surroundings."

And Harry did. It shocked him. The first time around, with Nagini, it was a legitimate vision. He could associate the place with the Ministry because having been there, he could associate the dark, grim corridor with what he thought and remembered the Ministry to be like, particularly in light of his work there. The second time around, with the multiple corridor visions, the idea of Voldemort being interested in something that was in that corridor in the Ministry was reinforced. By the time the Sirius-torture vision came up, Harry had already accepted the idea, that the vision would have something to do with the Ministry.

Except that it wasn't. As much as it was in the hands and pockets of the Dark Faction, the Ministry didn't have snake motifs on the wall, nor did it have any light sources in the ceiling. This was actually an appended vision.

"Bloody hell!" swore Harry sulphurously as he realised just how badly he had been deceived.

"Exactly," agreed Bill again, grimly. "You do understand what I am trying to say, don't you?"

"That I have to separate myself from the memory?"

"That is right, but not everything. For one, check for discontinuities. If it is not continuous, it is a dream and not a true vision. Moreover, in light of the Prophecy, you have to learn to use these visions."

"How?" asked Harry, in shock. This was not something he had ever encountered before. Bill, an adult, was giving him the tools and ways to actually help himself. He didn't want to be found wanting.

"By following this procedure, you will know that in your dreams, you are under a sort of possession. Voldemort attempted it all last year. If he does it again, fight back. **_You_** possess him. Try to, have him fire a Killing Curse at himself or something, you know. That's the best case. Even if you can't do that, and I don't expect that sort of success, given the enemy, you can still find out more about him."

"You're brilliant!" Harry softly remarked.

"I try," Bill smirked. He sobered up rather quickly, however. "You know, in spite of my particular skill-set, quite a lot has been hidden from me. And in both of the most important cases, I could have helped resolve the matter better than anyone else could have. It makes me wonder..."

"That maybe you aren't as trusted as you should be?"

Bill nodded unhappily.

"Well, for what it is worth, I do."

Bill didn't say it, but to him, it was worth a lot.

* * *

"You are right," Hermione stated one afternoon, after she had returned from her stint in the Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezees, for the day.

"We are right about what?" asked Ron, still watching with a kind of perverse fascination as his knight brutally murdered Harry's rook. Ron wasn't the only one who had to reprioritise. Harry needed to learn to get back to normal behaviour as well. Playing Chess was one of those things.

"Malfoy is certainly not on the straight and narrow." She still didn't want to truly believe anyone his age could be a Death Eater. Scepticism about the Imperius Curse idea had reached a peak. That meant that anyone who had the mark was guilty of every horrible crime thinkable. So unless she had visible proof of the Dark Mark on her classmate's skin, she was unwilling to outright accuse him.

"Call him a Death Eater, Hermione," corrected Harry with a sigh. "He has been one for as long as we have known him. What happened today?"

"I saw him through the shop window, once again going towards Borgin and Burke's. There are only so many times one person can do that. So Lee and I followed him. He was threatening them with a visit by Bellatrix, unless they helped him. He said, and I quote, "The Dark Lord won't be pleased if my dear aunt has to intervene." That doesn't say he is marked but..."

"What else do you want as proof?" asked Ron with irritation. "Come on, he was happy to see people killed at _twelve_! Look, I doubted that the first time Harry told us as well. But remember what Kingsley said."

"It's just..." she started, wringing her hands as her instincts and her logic warred with the part of her that wanted the world to be happiness, peace and pancakes. It was rather astounding that that part of her was still preserved, in spite of all that she had seen during her time in the magical world.

"You are hoping that he isn't, and can't think why he would want to be one? He was willing to _do_ just that at twelve and help the Heir of Slytherin!" echoed Harry.

"I know," she said morosely. "It just means that sooner or later, we will run into fights with someone we have known. When we think of the destruction of life Vo-Voldemort causes, it extends to both sides. He is killing them off too, in a different way."

"They know that, and they still accept it," Ron replied, still concentrating on an already won game. "What does that tell you?"

"We should have had Buckbeak have him?" she slyly interjected.

"Yes," answered Ron mid-move and then spluttered, placing his knight on the wrong square and losing it. "What?" Then he saw his two best friends laughing at him. "You did that on purpose!" he scowled, leading to more laughter. "That's beneath you, using Malfoy as a means to bungle my game!"

It felt nice to laugh a bit. It was a long time since the trio had been able to be just that.

Hermione had to add the last word though after a while. "If I get the proof though..." she declared viciously and coldly.

Harry and Ron could picture with glee the horrible things that could happen to one Draco Malfoy if Hermione found proof of his being marked. She wasn't quick to mark Malfoy as one, but if proven, as Ron had once said, she would give definitive proof of why she was "brilliant, but scary."

* * *

For a change, they didn't run late to King's Cross on the 1st of September 1996. It might have been because everyone badgered both Ron and Ginny to have their trunks ready a day in advance. It might have been because Hedwig, who was actually a fussy traveller, was currently flying to the Grangers to ensure that they knew who would be coming to cast wards on their home, disguised, much to her disgust, as a brown-feathered owl, and therefore a bird not remotely associated with Harry. She was stately. They had no right to insult her so! It might have been because Pig was sent on to the owlery at Hogwarts. It might have been because the there were no hidden pranks from the twins who had taken the family ghoul as their inspiration and hated the quiet.

Truthfully, it was a combination of all those factors.

Either way, the six were able to secure a good compartment early on, before Ron and Hermione had t leave for their prefect duties. Neville promptly dozed off. Luna read her upside down copy of the Quibbler. Ginny was the only one awake, and sat observing her once crush, and her very good friend.

"Have I got something on the back of my head, Gin?"

A bit embarrassed at being caught, Ginny nevertheless stoutly held up under the scrutiny of the green eyes she had once written a poem about. "How did you know?"

"I could see your reflection in the glass," he replied drily. "I can also see Luna picking her nose."

"I do not!" Luna uncharacteristically squealed. She then saw her friends laughing. This was some friendly teasing, she immediately recognised, unlike the bullying in the Ravenclaw House. She just huffed and returned to reading. "You are horrible," she said with a small snarl.

They calmed down to companionable silence as each resumed what they were doing.

"Dean is looking for you," he informed her after a moment.

"How do you know?"

"He has searched all the other compartments, probably, but has run afoul of the confounding charm I placed on the door to ensure we had no unwanted guests. I saw him thrice."

"Do that anymore, Harry, and Mad-Eye will adopt you."

They shared a quiet chuckle at that.

"I am willing to be, if that helps, at this point of time."

"You are always thinking about the Prophecy, aren't you?"

"I wouldn't say that."

"Please. I know you." She then narrowed her eyes. "And I know Dumbledore now, too," she hissed, slightly viciously. While unconfirmed, the signs portending the conclusions as were spoken in that lone Order meeting the six had sat in on had caused more than a slightly alarming dip in Dumbledore's purchase within the Order, at least as far as the people present that day were concerned. He was still respected, but as more and more answers to the question "What else could have been done?" emerged, his leadership and decision-making was found severely wanting. "I wouldn't be surprised if he told you the Prophecy right after Sirius, to have you obsess over it. Maybe he likes company in that miserable obsession."

That was the thing about Ginny. She was tomboyish, yes, but she was so like her mother, protective of those she held close and unafraid to speak it out. He found he rather liked this outspoken Ginny who did not blush, though it would be excellent ammunition to tease her. And it also brought the realisation that, in Mrs. Weasley, Fleur, Hermione, Luna and Ginny, he was surrounded by wonderfully clever, loving women of great strength, each in their own way. He was blessed. It was something he cherished, and would, for as long as he would be around to experience it.

"He should blame McGonagall then," Harry solemnly answered. "She gave me Quidditch to obsess about, and the Prophecy ranks a distant second. I am the captain you see; I am supposed to lord that over everyone else."

"I'll remember to give her a ball of yarn," Ginny resolutely replied. "But you couldn't lord anything over anyone if you tried. You will only embarrass yourself."

"I will learn," he declared.

"If you manage that, I will volunteer to be a test subject for one of the Twins' products."

They shared another subdued chuckle so as to not disturb Neville or Luna.

"Is she well though?" he asked in concern as he turned to face her. "She was brought down by multiple stunners."

"We think she might have had a heart attack which was why she took quite some time to recover. Fred wouldn't tell me much directly."

"Were those brutes even tried?"

She gave him a look that clearly said, "Do you even have to ask that?"

"Right," he replied verbally. "It never happened, did it?"

"It was all covered up."

She did not like the contemplative frown it brought to his face. She was not Hermione, of course, but she had still learnt to recognise his expressions and his broody silences in the three years, from her second to the fourth, that she had actually known him. She wished he would care less about everybody else, sometimes. There was only so much one person could possibly care, but he crossed those limits. It baffled her why he would care so much even about the woman who wouldn't protect him from Umbridge, and who was always unavailable when he needed help. It frustrated her. Every time she thought she had a handle on him, there was something else to baffle her.

The thoughts of her subject of evaluation had turned to his friends as well. It was funny how they were so similar in some ways, yet different.

Neville and he, the boys of prophecy, orphaned at the same age and who were shunned by their families, albeit in different ways. Yet it was Ron, who lacked confidence in his abilities that Neville had something in common with, for quite often, it was that trait which sought to define them, instead of their abilities – Ron could, if each situation was equated with something he knew, and suitably whittled down to the bare bones, give a solution few others could think of, while Neville was a Herbology legend. Ron chose to be an extrovert to paper over the cracks he saw in himself, while Neville the introvert would hide away both the cracks and himself. And Ron, just like Harry, had always wondered what he could truly call his own.

Ginny, Luna and Hermione were all similar in that they were very clever. Yet each was different. Ginny was the realist. Having had a brush with true darkness, it was a way in which she had been forced to grow in a skewed manner. She still was immature in some ways. Yet she hated the enemy with overwhelming passion, something that Hermione, with her book-inspired, idealistic worldview, starkly contrasted. He knew that Hermione was inspired, in part, by the Diary of Anne Frank and the belief that the girl had, that people are not inherently bad. She was going through the motions of a forced change due to her brush with mortality as well. Luna, though, was completely different. She strode down paths others didn't even believe existed.

Yet, Ron and Luna were similar in their own ways, able to see things in their own, if weird, ways which provided insight when one least expected it. Hermione and Neville had an innate loyalty that couldn't be compromised, even if that loyalty set them against people they were loyal to. Ginny, like Neville, held anger, he knew, even if they chose to show it in different ways. Ron and Hermione he was no longer able to think of as entities very different from himself. Ginny, too, knew what Sirius meant to him. But Luna and Neville, who knew nothing about Sirius, had come to help him because he was their friend, even if it was never spoken aloud, and even though it was under the garb of a flimsy reason. And these imperfect, complex, and therefore wonderful individuals were his friends.

For all that he wanted to be somebody his parents and Sirius and Remus would be proud of, for all that he still looked up to Dumbledore, the erring man who still was the stalwart bearer of defiance against the darkness, it was his friends that inspired Harry the most.

There was nothing he wouldn't do for them.

* * *

Four of the other five of the Ministry Six, all of whom (except Luna) had huddled together to avoid interrogations, were not the only ones who were drawn to the sight of Dumbledore's hand. They were, however, the only ones to fear its possibly sinister conclusion.

"It looks dead," Ron declared bluntly. "Any more and it would seem decayed and rotting."

"You've had your dinner Ron. I am still eating," groaned his sister.

"It seems he caught an old mummifying curse or a withering curse like Bill told me about," offered Harry. None of the others had had as much contact with the eldest Weasley brother, including the man's own siblings.

"If yes, then I am sure you are right, Harry," Hermione replied. "I looked them up. They can be contained, but not for long."

It cast a pall over the rest of the feast for them. At least, there was a degree of forewarning.

* * *

"Greasy Git," muttered Ron grumpily as he sank into his bed after the feast. "At least he won't last past the year."

"That's what I said to your mum," agreed Harry. "I wouldn't trust him if he was the only person on earth."

"I would rather not live on such a planet," Ron replied with a shudder.

"Do we still need the DA if Snape's going to teach?" asked Seamus. "I mean, he can't be worse than Umbridge."

"As much as it pains me to agree about this, I must say that nobody, not even Snape can do worse than Umbridge. She has set the bar so low..." Neville left the rest unsaid.

"And the DA?" prompted Dean.

Harry exchanged quick glances with his confederates during the Ministry battle. "The DA was a stop-gap solution. This is not to say we won't continue it, but to say that we must first see what Snape does. It may very well be that we will be able to build upon what he teaches, or we may not need the DA for the learning part at all."

Seamus nodded, before yawning widely enough to let everyone count his twenty-eight teeth – he didn't have his wisdom teeth – and dropped off. Dean though heard the unspoken message. The DA could be Hogwarts' unofficial lookouts and student-protectors. This, coupled with Ginny's rather grim-faced explanation regarding why she had not joined him in his compartment (not that he had demanded or even requested one), was not painting a pretty picture. Harry had been proven right. Now he couldn't take chances with the lives of his family. He had to learn all he could from his dorm-mate, if he would teach him. And if he was needed, he would not be found wanting.

* * *

Their first morning back passed without much incident, unless one counted the minor squabble between Ron and Hermione when he undercut her authority over a Fanged Frisbee, Lavender's shrill giggle in reply to that and the raised eyebrows that Harry and Hermione shared over that, and Hermione suggesting that Neville studying with them for the Transfiguration NEWT since he had been handicapped by the wand the first time around after hearing about it. That got a blush from the boy, a grin from the girl and a faint scowl from Harry.

It was in the DADA though, that the first possible bout of trouble with Snape beckoned.

" **The Dark Arts are many, varied, ever-changing, and eternal. Fighting them is like fighting a many-headed monster, which, each time a neck is severed, sprouts a head even fiercer and cleverer than before. You are fighting that which is unfixed, mutating, indestructible,** " he said, as ever with that sinister lilt to his voice.

A fleeting smidgen of doubt about Snape's leanings and his suitability to teach this subject when he so seemed to relish and cherish the Dark Arts arose in Harry's mind. Yet, he realised it was not too far from Mad-Eye's "Constant Vigilance" credo. Snape had basically said that the defence against the Dark Arts had to evolve with the Dark Arts, for they were more in the mind and the intent than in magic.

It also meant that nothing and nobody could be truly trusted.

Harry decided then and there, that he would start with Snape himself. And that he would not let this development, that of Snape attempting to destroy his favourite subject by being his greasy self, bother him. If at all, he would match the man's demands. So, instead of taking the bait with the dig about the disastrous Occlumency lessons, which Harry now knew Snape was at as much or more fault with, he ignored the jibe.

More importantly, something had come up during the time Harry had spent with Mad-Eye and Moony. They were flabbergasted to know that they had come to know that Snape had told them about the students' flight to the Ministry nearly four and a half hours after they left. For a man who could sweet-talk Voldemort, this was not a response to searches by the Ministry flunky called Umbridge. It was deliberate.

As it happened, he was paired with Ron, who was failing miserably at the attempt to jinx him. And as ever, Snape couldn't resist the chance to take petty, so-called revenge against the son of his dead school-time enemy. So when he was thrown back by a verbal "Protego!" Snape had to take the opportunity to attempt to inflict his company on Harry.

"Clearly you never did learn to listen to me," Snape silkily said. "Did I not tell you that the spell would be nonverbal?"

"Yes Professor."

"And yet you do not listen to what I say. You do not learn what I try to teach you, as abysmal as your ability to learn is."

"I did learn. I don't let people who murder, or help murder my family repeatedly, curse me, at the very least." So much for the resolution, he thought with an internal grimace.

Snape blanched white. Did the boy know? Did the boy know that he had told the Dark Lord the Prophecy? And "repeatedly", he had said. He had worked out how he had sent the Order in late, hoping the mutt would be killed, as he was being targeted since the Dark Lord's return. Just because he hated the Dark Lord did not mean he would let the mutt live.

He looked into the green eyes he once knew. They looked at him the same way they had looked at him the last time he had seen them, though encased in another face – with distrust, disgust and a growing rage bordering on hatred.

"Get. Out," he bit out. "Get out of my class. Now!" he commanded.

Harry swallowed all the snarky replies he was able to come up with and walked off, never showing Severus his back.

"I am not going to let you back in," the irate man thundered.

"I wouldn't wish to. That doesn't mean I won't guard against being cursed in the back." He left out the addendum, "by you, Death Eater."

He felt bad about letting this opportunity to let go of quite a bit of anger go.

For Severus, it was a slap in the face by another particularly bad memory, when another person with the same eyes had said the same words to him.

He spent the rest of the class lollygagging around the corridor, waiting for Dumbledore's summons. He was going to vent the last of his anger at that man. He was in for a penny, so it would be best to be in for a pound as well.

As it happened, the class ended, as did the day. The summons never came.

Hermione though was disappointed. She didn't even wait for them to leave the corridor. "Did you have to?"

"Yes. He was – is – as culpable of Sirius' murder as Bellatrix," he snapped.

"Don't chew my head off!" she countered. "I know and thought of that before you did if you remember. Think. Remus had told you not to say a word. He agrees with us over the matter, though Professor Dumbledore trusts Professor Snape."

"I know," he replied in dejection. "I was trying. But he stood there gloating, throwing the fact that it was my fault in my face. I just wish he dies or something. Maybe the curse could increase its potency for him? He must have danced with joy internally when my parents died. Mum tried to defend him and he called her mudblood. Tells us what sort of a...a...hateful, murderous excuse of a human he is. I am sure mum must have thought the same. I sometimes think my dad was right, in what he said. He hated Snape's very existence. Can't really fault him, can I? It's good he is the DADA teacher now. Maybe he'll die in a very gruesome way."

Hermione frowned at his morbid wishes, but she could understand, though not condone the loss of control. Her hand slipped out and grabbed his in a reassuring squeeze that spoke more than words would have. A fleeting exchange of a smile was enough to tell him that she understood.

Neville said nothing, for there was nothing he could. Ron, just because he could, decided to nitpick something in his friend's defence. "I don't think he is anything but dark. You saw how he talked about the Dark Arts. He _loves_ them!"

Hermione was not convinced. "He didn't tell us anything we didn't already hear. In fact," she mused, "he sounded like Harry."

"What?"

 **"** **Yes, when you were telling us what it's like to face Voldemort. You said it wasn't just memorizing a bunch of spells, you said it was just you and your brains and your guts — well, wasn't that what Snape was saying? That it really comes down to being brave and quick-thinking?"**

 **Harry was disarmed that she had thought his words as well worth memorizing as** ** _The Standard Book of Spells._** He agreed with her on the matter, as much as it pained him. More importantly, the idea that Hermione might consider his words as important as that of a Professor made him feel...proud.

The line of conversation was aborted as Jack Sloper handed Harry Dumbledore's invite for the lessons while asking about Quidditch.

"We need to get this to Fleur immediately, don't we?" Neville asked, once they were done reading and near to the staircase which took them four floors up. "You could just go to a classroom and cast the Patronus to inform her now."

"Of course," Harry replied. "I can only do ten words though."

So between them, they worked out, "Dumbledore lessons, Saturday evening 8; find other communication means."

* * *

It was very weird for Harry to be able to actually win something in potions. It had been the class he had been looking forward to, till he met Severus Snape that is.

He had not expected Slughorn's requirements to be lax compared to Snape, and the apathy towards the subject developed over five years had meant that had hadn't bothered to ask. So after smelling Amortentia (treacle tart, the distinctive smell of a broomstick and something he associated with parchment, inks, old books and wild flowers and vanilla), when he had to borrow the books from Slughorn and found a heavily modified one, his first reaction was a frustrated huff.

Slughorn had met Harry before, and when Harry's cold reprimand about his off-hand remarks that could be construed as blood prejudice were recited by the Professor verbatim with reference to Hermione, she had been very pleased. And seeing her pleased had made Harry feel like his insides were filled with hot chocolate on a cold wintry day. Seeing Hermione's bright smile had brightened his day. Seeing the Professor ignore Malfoy made it a doubly fun lesson. A chance taken with the modified potion then had him winning the Felix Felicis.

And then he was brought down from his high by the disappointment on Hermione's face. His description thereafter, in private, irritated her even more.

 **"** **I suppose you think I cheated?" he finished, aggravated by her expression.**

 **"** **Well, it wasn't exactly your own work, was it?" she said stiffly.**

 **"** **He only followed different instructions to ours," said Ron. "Could've been a catastrophe, couldn't it? But he took a risk and it paid off." He heaved a sigh. "Slughorn could've handed me that book, but no, I get the one no one's ever written on.** ** _Puked_** **on, by the look of page fifty-two, but —"**

She shook her head expressively, her bushy hair flying here and there. And Harry caught the same scent of inks, parchment, old books, wild flowers and vanilla. "You can't coast along on someone else's work! Don't you understand? By following something written in a book by someone else..."

 **"** **Hang on," said a voice close by Harry's left ear. He looked around and saw that Ginny had joined them.**

 **"** **Did I hear right? You've been taking orders from something someone wrote in a book, Harry?"**

 **She looked alarmed and angry. Harry knew what was on her mind at once. "It's nothing," he said reassuringly, lowering his voice. "It's not like, you know, Riddle's diary. It's just an old textbook someone's scribbled on."**

It gave further impetus to Hermione, and if he was honest about it, Harry would have called her out on what he thought was her over-competitive nature. Still, he had forgiven many people many things. And Hermione was allowed her little foibles – because she was Hermione. If he could forgive Ron calling him a liar, he could certainly forgive Hermione her obsession. So when she finally could find nothing wrong with the book and seemed to get angrier, he extended an olive branch. Of course, it came with the prefix of a little emotional twisting.

"Hermione, look, I know you are particularly feeling irritated that you were beaten by someone who did not know what he was doing. But you forget that what I get, I always share with you, with Ron, with all our friends. Do you think calling me a cheat like I was called in our fourth year is warranted?"

She looked at him in shocked, wide eyes, startled. "No! Of course not! I didn't! Oh, Harry, I really didn't mean it!" She seemed a bit panicky over it.

"It's okay," he replied, a touch sorrowfully. "I mean, I understand how books and cleverness are the most important things for you..." Hermione was not the only one who paid attention to someone else's words.

"No! There are more important things! Friendship and..." She stopped again, mid-sentence, still unable to complete what she had started to say four years ago. "No. This isn't as important to me as you are!" she declared.

Harry just gave her a tentative smile. "Yes. But this is important to you. And I don't want to coast along on someone else's work, as you said. So here is what we are going to do. All of us need it. We know that these modifications work. So we will go to the library and research and find out why they work. Who knows, once you understand what the person was thinking, you might come up with some modifications of your own!" She was about to protest, but he countered her point before she could make it. "You know as well as I, that Potion-making is like chemistry and it can progress only with experimentation and research. If everything were to be done officially, nothing new would ever happen."

This was clearly the right thing to say. A mixed expression of acceptance, anticipation, happiness and relief crept over her face before she hugged him hard. "Yes. We will do that. Then we can give the copy to Ron and Ginny and Luna and..."

"Everybody else, yes," he completed. "We can also attach notes containing the explanations. This way, we will have studied a bit for the NEWTs too."

Ron and Ginny watched astounded as Harry expertly handled Hermione, getting to keep the book, the potion _and_ managing to calm her and get her to agree to something. While the 'L' word wasn't thrown about, they still recognised two people who had a great deal of mutual understanding – enough to know which buttons of the other to push to get what they wanted. After all, even though they had never heard whatever it was that Hermione had started to say, Harry clearly had, and had used that to great effect.

It was an astounding skill, one that Ron knew he didn't have. And, he realised, in the process, he was left with nothing to complain about, except perhaps participating in the process, for now he would get readymade notes, and better instructions, and some recognition from the professor.

For the rest of the week, Hermione was relishing the challenge of finding out why the Prince's (the Half-Blood Prince was the book's previous owner, though Harry wondered how many others had modified the book, given the fact that it looked to be at least twenty or more years old) modifications worked. This meant she got to disseminate knowledge to Harry who kept asking her the reason for every small thing. Hermione was a far better Potions Teacher compared to Snape. She also got to add the modifications to her essays, and once she was convinced of the reasons, and of the fact that Harry had not only made an effort to understand them, but actually had understood them well enough to be able to explain to the others, she was happily using the modified instructions and having no problems with the others, and Harry in particular, using them as well.

Just like that, the storm in the Cauldron-sized teacup blew over leaving behind no trace.

* * *

The more important things that happened were the people like Ernie MacMillan, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Susan Bones and Hannah Abbott from Hufflepuff officiously meeting the six. They talked about the DA and exchanged pleasantries. Neville reckoned it was supposed to be some form of political glad-handing practice.

It was however, Susan, who lingered back.

"Are you really not going to restart the DA?" she asked, a note of pleading colouring her voice.

"In all honesty, Susan, it was aimed at getting around Umbridge. As much as I detest Snape, there is no denying that he is teaching important things," Harry honestly answered, though he refrained from committing either way.

"Are you able to cast silently?"

"Yes."

"Prove it."

And Harry actually had learnt it, if only by brute-forcing it. After that first class, he'd been determined to learn it. And so in a move reminiscent of the time before the first task, he had gone on and on and on and on till he could cast every first year spell silently. By the time he ended the effort, he had learnt the trick. It was more than just focus. All that had to exist was the caster, spell and target; nothing else. One had to fill the mind with only that spell within a split second. And once that was accomplished, it had to be done till one could do that for any spell, randomly. As such, he was now able to use any spell from his first four years of schooling silently, barring the Patronus Charm, and including the transfigurations, something that neither Hermione had managed to do, nor had Snape expected.

It was like using Occlumency at every instance that the silent spells were required to be used.

So Harry proved it.

"Now tell me. How did you do it?"

This was Susan asking him and he had taught her before. So he explained it to her. And then he had her practice it till she managed the shield charm, which was Snape's current focus, thrice in succession. It was complemented by the stunner, because 'Stupefy' was among the fastest spells, useful in an actual battle. He fell into the patterns rather easily.

When she finally grinned in exultation, as did Neville, Ron, Hermione and Dean, she asked rather innocently, "So the DA is definitely not on, is it?"

Harry gaped at her a bit stupidly. She had tricked him.

"You can't be anything but the leader of the DA, Harry," she explained simply. "Our leader," she emphasised. "The DA never existed just for the OWLs. It exists because we are willing to fight with you against You-Know-Who."

"You shouldn't have to."

"Nor should you, yet you are."

"He never seems to leave me alone." It was the stock, pre-decided answer.

"That's a lie. You would fight him on general principle, because he left you an orphan," she furiously countered. "And he killed my aunt. I was very close to her. It didn't render me an orphan, but she was very important to me. They have killed my Uncle, his wife and children as well. Just like your family, we have been reduced to one small branch. I will be the last of the Boneses after my parents unless they miraculously have another child."

"So you are looking for revenge?"

"At the moment, yes, I am. I am not going to altruistic about it. And you will teach me, because you know that if I end up dead in a ditch somewhere, it will eat you up inside. You could have taught me to fight but didn't."

They glared at each other for a few moments. Then Harry had to step back. "How were you not sorted into Slytherin?"

"It tried and failed. I am more loyal than cunning."

"That's scary."

Susan laughed. Reaching up, she kissed him on the cheek and thanked him.

Before she left, though, Neville cautioned her. "Don't spread it. If we do continue the DA, it won't be like last year. I am still unsure how Harry's going to proceed, and it may also reach the wrong ears."

She nodded, smiled, waved and left, leaving behind a goofily stunned, still gaping Harry, and a slightly scowling Hermione. Susan seemed to have seen Hermione's expression for she winked at her, worsening Hermione's mood.

"So, you take kisses from girls in lieu of being manipulated into teaching them?" demanded Hermione.

"What?"

"Don't act dumb! What did Cho ask you to **_teach_** her?" she spat bitterly, with an obvious inflection on 'teach'.

"Where did Cho come from?" asked Harry dumbfounded. In all honesty, she had not even been in his thoughts since the Ministry debacle.

She glared at him and stalked away.

"What? What did I do?" Harry asked her retreating back. He received no answer, though his remaining companions did snicker.

* * *

Hermione's mood did not subside till Saturday, when Harry finally set out for the lesson with Dumbledore. While there was some speculation and some hope about the kind of magic he would teach Harry, he himself had little of the same.

A little stilted conversation, during which Dumbledore hinted at his disappointment with Harry regarding his war of words with Snape, followed. Snape had taken to pretending that Harry did not exist, which, given the fact that he was the only one able to cope with any new spell to be tried silently, was a massive achievement. Snape only ended up coming across as a particularly jilted lover.

Once the topic returned to their actual lesson for the evening, Harry asked only once about the probability of his survival being aided by whatever Dumbledore was going to teach him. The indirect answer was no. That the lesson consisted of one memory, through which Harry empirically derived Voldemort's ancestry, the level of abuse faced by his mother from her own father and brother, and the fact that all three people were severely touched in the head, along with the fact that young Merope looked at the handsome country squire as a salvation from her personal hell, was also disappointing.

What remained, though, was the idea that the memory peculiarly focussed on Slytherin's Locket and his Ring.

He also got Dumbledore to agree to allow him to tell Ron and Hermione. As he then told the others, "He never said one way or the other about not telling anyone else. Secrecy is one thing. Distrust is another. I am not keeping this big a secret from you, when you have decided to stand by me. I trust you all."

It had made all five of them blush and stammer, before Ron, red-eared, had suggested that having a way for someone to be able to view these lessons and give a second opinion would be valuable. That meant Bill, Mad-Eye, Remus, Kingsley and Fleur. That went into the various missives that Fleur received through the five Patronuses.

"So you learnt nothing much, beyond some 'know your enemy' thing," Ginny remarked.

"This time, yes," he agreed.

"It could be important, yet. Maybe it isn't Voldemort, or the people, but something else that Dumbledore was trying to show you? Perhaps the Locket and the Ring that you thought the memory focussed on?" wondered Hermione.

"That's particularly frustrating. I just keep thinking that there is something in it that I should know, something that I have seen. I just don't know what."

"We'll figure it out," Neville assured. "You have more people helping you than Dumbledore believes you do."

"You have Wrackspurts, Harry," Luna lightly commented. "They have stopped the memory from triggering another memory. At least you have recognised that. Trying to focus on what they are trying to hide drives them away."

"Like a Confundus Charm?" Ron asked. "Maybe he actually saw that, and one of the protections on the thing acted like a Confundus Charm so that people would forget about it?"

She just smiled brightly at him.

The other four blinked at the duo. It made sense, strangely.

Much later, while Hermione sat down to wait with him while he caught up with some homework, she asked, "So are you going to tell Susan and Cho?"

"Why would I tell them?" he asked absently. Then he stopped writing and looked at her squarely. "What's the thing you've got against them?"

"Nothing," she replied evasively.

"I believe you," he replied sarcastically. "You know, Voldemort visited WWW for pranking goodies yesterday, for a massive prank on the Death Eaters."

"There's no need to be so..." she started, but stopped when she saw his face. "What?"

"Are the twins employing security measures against customers? Who knows who can use what kind of product to perform what kind of mischief?"

This had her sitting back shocked. Another Patronus found its way, this time to Mad-Eye. "We really need another way to communicate."

"We do." He resumed writing, glancing at Hermione every now and then, before broaching the subject again. "So you never told me what you've got against Susan and Cho."

"You **_are_** dating Cho," she reminded. "You never actually broke up."

"I **_was_** dating Cho," he corrected. "We went on **_one_** date, which I broke to come with you."

"Are you blaming me?" she asked archly.

"No. I am thanking you for rescuing me from the pink disaster that was Madam Puddifoot's and Cho expecting that I'd kiss her, or anyone else for that matter, in public."

"You're welcome," she replied grandly, making him grin at her.

He saw neither the pinched look she wore when he mentioned him kissing Cho, nor the knowing look when he talked about kissing in public even as she launched into a completely different tangent to avoid the subject that lingered between them.


	3. Thief and Elf

**Thief and Elf**

A/N:

I addressed my pet peeves with the entire story – the fact that in spite of liberally using only Stunners in fights (funnily, a shaky-handed Hermione uses the cutting spell on Ron to help in the cafe in book 7, not on Death Eaters), they aren't used when that's the logical and obvious step (for instance Wormtail in book 3, but then he isn't stunned either), leading to deaths later.

Elements of romance even though I have never written that before, ever.

 **Dumbledore's first lesson and the Quidditch trials take place before the 19** **th** **of September.**

* * *

Having homework, enormous, mind-boggling, tear the hair out amounts of homework, was a blessing. When Ron actually said that, he felt as if he had committed blasphemy.

"Who are you and what did you do to Ron Weasley?" asked Harry, wholly too amused by his friend's slip of tongue.

"Well, at least books don't tell you about attacks. I don't really like reading about someone's death every day, even though that is all that the papers put out. It's just that. I have to keep resisting the question whether anyone we know is dead."

He got no response, there was none to give. As much as Molly resisted their participation in the war, **_rightly_** , because they were children, the fact that one of them would have to be the one to cast the final spell or have it cast at him had made it their war. They were no longer children, by circumstance, and due to the failure of the previous generations.

* * *

One of the funniest things to watch while they were isolated from the war was Lavender's determined pursuit of Ron.

It started around the same time as the day Harry put up the notices for the Quidditch tryouts. Ron was going to try out for the Keeper's position again, of course, while they had lost Angelina and Alicia, meaning that Katie, in spite of her many protests about any automatic selection, was required to shepherd the other two, or three, new faces in the line-up.

It started with high-pitched giggles at even the smallest, remotely funny thing Ron said – things that none of the rest would have even twitched a lip at – which would startle them all. It caused Ron severe discomfiture because of the sudden attention and also made him strut a bit because of the attention. It had taken everyone quite a bit of effort to not laugh out loud at the unlikely duo's antics.

Of course, that meant he had to have all the attention once he had even a bit of it.

A lot of people had applied for the trials for Quidditch and that had confused Harry a bit. They were all having problems managing time around all their suddenly and unbelievably busy school schedules.

"The **trials might take all morning, the number of people who have applied." He felt slightly nervous at confronting the first hurdle of his Captaincy. "I dunno why the team's this popular all of a sudden."**

 **"** **Oh, come on, Harry," said Hermione, suddenly impatient. "It's not** ** _Quidditch_** **that's popular, it's you! You've never been more interesting, and frankly, you've never been more fanciable."**

 **Ron gagged on a large piece of kipper. Hermione spared him one look of disdain before turning back to Harry. "Everyone knows you've been telling the truth now, don't they? The whole Wizarding world has had to admit that you were right about Voldemort being back and that you really have fought him twice in the last two years and escaped both times. And now they're calling you 'the Chosen One' — well, come on, can't you see why people are fascinated by you?"**

 **Harry was finding the Great Hall very hot all of a sudden, even though the ceiling still looked cold and rainy.**

 **"** ** _And_** **you've been through all that persecution from the Ministry when they were trying to make out you were unstable and a liar. You can still see the marks on the back of your hand where that evil woman made you write with your own blood, but you stuck to your story anyway. . . ."**

 **"** **You can still see where those brains got hold of me in the Ministry, look," said Ron, shaking back his sleeves.**

 **"** **And it doesn't hurt that you've grown about a foot over the summer either," Hermione finished, ignoring Ron.**

 **"** **I'm tall," said Ron inconsequentially.**

"Ron, this is **_Harry_** I am talking about being fanciable. **_Him_**!" she declared categorically, jabbing her knife in Harry's direction and making him swerve out of the way. "Not **_you_** ," Hermione snapped irritably. "Go get Lavender to say that to you. I am unlikely to do that, ever!"

Neville choked on his toast as he heard Hermione upbraid Ron, who had quickly quailed when faced by her wrath, and then started sniggering and looking between Harry and Hermione. They resembled overripe tomatoes, in turn. Hermione refused to look at anyone at all, glaring at the table as if it had done her some great personal wrong.

Thankfully there was the problem of Hagrid to change the subject to.

"Well, I...uh...may have a way to get Hagrid to not be angry," Harry stuttered.

Hermione gave him a brilliant smile which simultaneously made Harry's heart skip several beats and also made him smile happily in return. To think that that brilliant smile was almost lost forever due to one Death Eater.

"What is it, Harry?"

"Well, we know old Tommy will step up the game soon. Hagrid has to know about the beasties worse than the ones in the syllabus. We have to get him to teach us that. If he can great, otherwise, he will still be able to guide us. I wouldn't put it past Tom to have another basilisk stashed away somewhere."

It was such a horrendous idea that there was no way that any mirth at Hermione's slip would remain on anyone's mind, let alone on anyone's faces.

"I never thought of that before," she responded in a small voice.

"Nor did I before this moment," Harry responded dully. "Now that we have, however, it will serve two purposes. Hagrid will be happier to teach us about his mad beasts, and we will know to deal with them if Voldemort does have them."

"We better go after the trials then," Neville agreed.

"So, let me get this straight. We are going to Hagrid to ask him to teach us about things like the Skrewts?" Ron asked, his tone suggesting that he clearly thought they were all insane.

"Yes."

"Capital," he replied in a false cheery voice.

"It is Tom," Ginny pointed out. "If it is dangerous, and it can harm many people, he will have it." It did explain everything.

They soon left for the stadium, remembering the incident involving Hannah Abbott's mum (who was found dead), sparing a look of sympathy for Parvati Patil, whose parents wanted her and her sister at home instead of at Hogwarts, and gritting their teeth in an attempt not to laugh as Lavender and Ron engaged in their weird flirting ritual causing Ron to strut again. It took a cough from Hermione for the group to move on. Harry was pretty sure that she was likely to plot something to take Ron's mickey with Ginny. It would be fun to watch.

* * *

It was a reasonably decent team, consisting of the returning Katie Bell, Demelza Robins and Ginny as first choice Chasers with Dean Thomas as a reserve, Ritchie Coote and Jimmy Peakes as Beaters, and Ron as the first choice Keeper, with Cormac McLaggen as his deputy that was chosen.

This last candidate was a problem. Arrogant in a way that made him seem a long-lost Malfoy lovechild, he was very incensed at being the deputy in spite of the fact that he had missed one of the penalties compared to Ron's clean sheet. He even demanded to be given another chance.

As it happened, it was not just the other people who had turned up for the trials who found McLaggen an abrasive irritating braggart. His only miss was due probably only a tiny point of a percent of an aid to the Confundus Charm Hermione had applied on the boy. The captain had seen it, as had Katie, and they had exchanged a glance that told both that instead of affording the git another go, they would rather get Hermione a present. They were good people, but they weren't so good as to not even sometimes be petty.

"Think before having your swollen ego spilling about around Harry," Hermione had muttered sulphurously. "The sheer temerity of calling him a liar and strutting about around here after last year is astounding."

She was awarded a beaming smile by Lavender, a gesture returned uncertainly by Hermione.

The gesture was certainly not returned by any of them when Lavender, who'd been making a scene with her rather misplaced exuberance, considering that it was just a trial, barged in with her congratulations while the rest of the team was still being briefed about the coming season. A crush was one thing but then Ron was their friend and Keeper first. And Lavender was forcing her presence in that circle of trust that had been there for years, and it was certainly not appreciated.

In the midst of that drama, the little blonde Ravenclaw, who was very adept at not being seen or heard when she didn't want to be, and who was singing "Weasley is our King," while fiddling with her Butterbeer cork necklace, went completely unnoticed.

* * *

Hagrid was certainly not pleased to see them – or rather, he was not pleased by their dropping his class from their schedule. That was an understatement of such enormity that even Hagrid wouldn't have been able to handle a beast that size.

They had approached Buckbeak the Wither-Winged and were getting reacquainted with the majestic Hippogriff that had shared its newfound freedom with the man that both Buckbeak and Harry missed a lot, when Hagrid rushed out to drive them away.

"You," he remarked disdainfully, before marching off in a huff and slamming the door of his hut shut behind him.

"Is it me, or is Hagrid really behaving like an extremely overgrown kid?" Neville asked. He wasn't as familiar with the gigantic man as the others were. Ginny wasn't as familiar either.

"He is feeling left alone while he is grieving for his friend," Luna airily announced, startling everyone as she flitted in. She stared blankly at Ron before greeting, "Hello Ronald!" with as much emotion as one would use while greeting a flobberworm. The others were treated to a normal greeting consisting of all sorts of creatures.

"Who is he grieving for?"

"You have met him."

Since no other description was forthcoming as she strode away towards the hut, the others assumed it was one of the Centaurs.

"Hagrid open the damn door or I will bloody break it down!" Hermione threatened, uncharacteristically swearing twice after repeated failed attempts at politely having him open the door.

Hagrid did open the door at that. So shocked was he by Hermione's sudden fall into the dark abyss of foul language, that he joined the others in staring at her with an expression that reflected that shock.

She smiled sweetly at them all. "See, that got him to open the door," she quipped as she darted past the half-giant into his hut.

"Never thought she would be cruel to outsmart me like that," Hagrid growled out gruffly as he grudgingly let the others in. "And I thought you of all people would have some respect for a teacher, Granger!"

"I am sorry, Professor Hagrid, but we really did want to see you," she replied in a small voice.

Hagrid grunted and huffed. "I call you Granger and you call me Professor. I am not stupid."

"Never said you were," Hermione replied quickly, now really alarmed. This was not how she had envisioned it.

"Ungrateful little," started Hagrid, as he slammed his cutlery around and mumbled darkly all the while.

Ron and Harry both looked a bit green at Hagrid's anger. Hagrid's general demeanour screamed out his anger.

"So what?" he demanded suddenly. "Is this a pity visit? What do you think, I am lonely or something?"

"We missed you Hagrid," they replied earnestly. They ignored a squelching sound somewhere behind Ginny.

"Yeah right," Hagrid replied dismissively. "Next you'll be telling me that you really did want to take my subject..."

"No. We won't lie," replied Neville, starting with the actual topic. "We do want you to teach us, but we didn't want to take your subject."

That caught Hagrid cold.

"What do you mean?"

"Well," started Ginny, "we thought that since the Ministry is always hounding you, you wouldn't be teaching stuff that you actually teach. You know, just to stay on the safe side."

"And we need you to teach us about the really dangerous beasts," Ron spiritedly added, doing his part in convincing Hagrid to do something that Ron desperately didn't want him to do. "Everybody is talking about Dementors, but who knows what You-Know-Who has? He might release a Nundu on some place or something, or a troll or whatever, and well, learning about a unicorn won't help us then, will it?"

"And we could help you find the Nickleback Warblers," Luna added in what was surely supposed to be a consoling voice – it was the sort of voice Petunia used when she would try to coax Dudley out of a tantrum. Luna clearly thought that the idea of new beasts would cheer Hagrid up.

The idea simultaneously terrified and cheered Hagrid. "That was really why you didn't take it?"

"Yes," Harry firmly replied. "We need to learn things that will help us with the war first and foremost, and we can only begin to imagine how horrible Riddle is, so there is nothing as being prepared enough."

Then there was that squelching sound again, and this time, they couldn't ignore it. While the grubs that were making the noise were fairly disgusting, they could all sympathise with Hagrid as he broke down into great heaving sobs as he told them of Aragog the Acromantula's slow descent into the eternal embrace of death.

Once they left and were halfway to the castle, Ron asked with real honesty, "Am I a bad person for not being terribly sad about the coming death of that bloody monster that tried to eat us?"

"Am I a bad person for thinking that maybe this Acromantula nest should be moved as far away as possible before they attack the school or something, even before that Agora or Aragog or whatever its name is dies, which by the way, would attract predators and scavengers as well?" asked Ginny far more practically, proving that she was indeed Bill's sister.

* * *

Every day spent in the library gave Harry new revelations about Hermione. It was often difficult to take his eyes off her as she crouched feverishly over some book or the other, fretting over what some spell's mechanics were or something or the other.

He had been initially reluctant to go on with the promise he had made to her – that of studying the Prince's Potion Book thoroughly. So every day, they devoted an hour to deciphering the whys and hows of everything scribbled on every page. Just three weeks and about halfway through the book, both were convinced that the book was its weight in solid gold.

That meant that he was allowed to use the book, but not the spells immediately (one of the, _Levicorpus_ , seemed to be the one James Potter had used on Severus Snape, which meant Harry was not sure what to think of it). Some like the _Muffliato,_ which were benign, were quickly put into use.

But more important to Harry's mind was what he learnt about his best female friend. They had all along thought that pursuit of knowledge was an obsession for Hermione. That was untrue. Many people express themselves through various art forms. For Hermione, any new thing she learnt was something she tried to quickly connect to her life as she lived it before she disseminated it. It was her form of expression. It was what made Hermione herself. For her, learning was an art in itself.

And just like many artists who can't bear any insult to their art, she was unable to accept the truth that not all people appreciated learning the way she did. She was not perfect, but then again, it is the imperfections of a person which make him or her more human, and it is on that basis that a person is liked or disliked. And Harry found that he rather adored Hermione, and all her better qualities and imperfections.

Through observing her, he found out her most standout trait – she was passionate. She was passionate about everything that she truly believed in. And he was astounded, humbled and elated in equal quantities to find out that she was passionate about him. It was there in every action and every word that she spoke to him and about him.

It also scared him. How was he to live up to that?

His observations were not unobserved. Every so often, Hermione caught him staring at her, sometimes openly, sometimes as if lost in thought and looking straight through her, and sometimes discreetly. She was not sure what to think of that. From most people, such staring would be creepy, really. So she wasn't sure what Harry's staring in particular not seeming creepy meant. Most others would have been slapped. Perhaps it was the look of wonder and sometimes goofy smile that she saw on his face when he looked at her that stayed her hand? She wasn't sure whether she wanted the answer.

What she did know was that she felt jealous, something that had hitherto seemed foreign to her constitution, whenever Harry happened to receive attention from other girls, which was all the time these days. It was to his credit that he did not give in and also did not snap at the girls, though _she_ did want to snap at them, especially the likes of Romilda Vane who wanted to dose Harry with potions to garner his attention.

On a deeper level though, was the conversation that they had had that day at the Burrow. Harry rarely laid himself bare to anyone beyond his anger – a mechanism that Hermione had realised was his way to not be seen as weak or vulnerable in any manner. Yet, that day she had known from his reaction that **_she_** was his weakness. It was a dangerous weakness to have and yet, it made her feel happy and something indescribably warm in her chest, like a mug of hot chocolate filling her up on a cold winter day.

Then there was the birthday celebration. She was surprised for sure. It had not been celebrated before with as much gusto. But her friends had managed to sneak up butterbeer, cake (sweet, not the sort that her parents ate; as cordial as her familial relationships were, one does not simply eat unsweetened birthday cake) and there was a party in the Gryffindor common room which culminated in her being given a dare: a ride on the Firebolt. Knowing that she wouldn't fly high or fast, Hermione was taken on a ride by the broom's owner. Her heart still thumped far harder and faster when she remembered that flight. And it was certainly not out of sheer terror – not wholly at least.

Neither was ignorant of the fact that they could soon transcend the boundaries of friendship. Yet both knew that there was something there that they weren't ready to admit yet.

* * *

They knew that it was going to be cold, but there was cold, and then there was this. It was as if the weather was waging a personal war against the students going to Hogsmeade.

Astoundingly, it was Fleur who was in Hogsmeade on the first school weekend there. She was their communications person and so the person they were all in contact with the most, but it was still nice to meet her. Ron didn't have his hanger-on, having escaped Lavender fairly early. Ginny and Luna were away by themselves, but soon joined the group at the Three Broomsticks, wherefrom they left for the Shrieking Shack.

"How are you, mon petit frère?" she asked as she kissed Harry on the cheeks, as she had taken to doing ever since Harry had dressed the female occupants of the Burrow down, and forced them to tone down their hostility, leading to her current friendship with one of them.

"I'm fine, and you?" he replied easily with a smile. It was nice to meet his newest friend again. A round of greetings followed, decidedly stilted on Ron and Ginny's part because the former still had problems with the allure and the latter was still undecided about the woman who would replace her in the order of importance in the life of her oldest brother, the one who coddled her and pampered her the most.

"Now, you know what Bill wants?"

"The memory of watching the memory, yes," answered Harry. "How does it work though? Do I lose the memory permanently?"

"No. We only make a copy."

"But will you understand the memories as I did?" Harry persisted.

"What do you mean?"

"Of course!" remarked Hermione. "Some parts are in Parseltongue, aren't they?"

"Were," corrected Luna. "That's why Harry's asking whether they will be understood the way he understood them."

"You did say that you always hear English," Ron supplied, remembering something his friend had once told them.

They all looked to Fleur for the answers.

"I honestly don't know. When we are shown memories in Gringotts, the Goblins always ensure that the memories are in English somehow. We are required to have passable fluency, but beyond that, the language is quite...rough."

"We will just have to muddle through then."

"Or Harry could just write the translations and send them with Hedwig," Hermione pointed out drily.

"Ah...yes."

"Um...this is a stupid question, probably, but how are you going to view the memories?" Neville reasonably asked.

"I did not think to ask Mad-Eye where he gets the things. He scares me," she said with a shiver. Nobody would honestly blame her. Mad-Eye's USP, as the muggles would say, was actually the fact that he could scare people a lot, along with his over-hyped paranoia.

The line of questions was dropped.

"Well then, give me the memories!"

"I've never actually given one before," Harry admitted. For every new solution, it seemed there were ten things they didn't know.

"May I?" asked Hermione. "I searched." Harry simply stood relaxed. Hermione knew, so that was enough. She was doing the needful after all. "What now?" she asked once she was done.

Fleur presented her with a set of Unbreakable vials. "Between now and Christmas, Dumbledore may show you more memories, Harry. We intend to compile them, sort them, and review them. We can't say anything until we know more. Bill knows something, but he is reluctant to say more till he can meet you in person."

"Speaking of Bill, would you please give him this letter? I had an idea," Ginny explained. "I know the Order doesn't do raids, but these could be useful if we need to escape. I was thinking of something like the first-aid kit Dean was talking about."

"I shall," Fleur promised. "The idea seems promising." She glanced at her watch and frowned. "I must leave soon. I have no business being here, technically, and at this point, I would rather not have anyone know that we are doing something beyond what the Order is known to do."

That made sense, considering that the 'others' consisted of the other Order members too.

"Thanks Fleur," they all chimed in.

They were all readying themselves to brave the weather again when a very familiar face was spied, out in the street, in the company of a man they knew to be the barman at the Hog's Head. It was Dung, the thief.

"Mundungus!" called out Ron, a bit stupidly, just as they reached him. Neither of Fleur, nor Hermione, nor Ginny was successful in their attempts to shut him up.

 **The squat, bandy-legged man with long, straggly, ginger hair jumped and dropped an ancient suitcase which burst open, releasing what looked like the entire contents of a junk shop window. "Oh, hello, Harry," said Mundungus Fletcher, with a most unconvincing stab at airiness. "Well, don't let me keep you."** Drink and a general state of unkemptness along with the perennial sore throat that his smoking habits had blessed him with rendered the man barely intelligible. **He began scrabbling on the ground to retrieve the contents of his suitcase with every appearance of a man eager to be gone.**

 **"** **Are you selling this stuff?" asked Harry, watching Mundungus grab an assortment of grubby-looking objects from the ground.**

 **"** **Oh, well, I have to scrape a living," said Mundungus. "Give me that!"**

 **Ron had stooped down and picked up something silver.**

 **"** **Hang on," Ron said slowly. "This looks familiar –"**

 **"** **Thank you!" said Mundungus, snatching the goblet out of Ron's hand and stuffing it back into the case. "Well, I'll see you all...OUCH!"**

 **Harry had pinned Mundungus against the wall of the pub by the throat. Holding him fast with one hand, he pulled out his wand.**

It was more stuff from Grimmauld Place, with the Black Family Crest on it.

"I know you are a bloody thief, Dung," Harry growled menacingly as he squeezed the man's throat slightly, making him choke and turn purple, a bit. "I didn't know you were a treacherous double agent too."

"WHAT?" everyone shouted in near-unison completely flabbergasted.

Mundungus tried to reach his wand and take advantage of the confusion, an action which Luna saw and she promptly stunned him – at the same instant as Neville's incarcerating spell and Harry's own stunner impacted the man.

"Harry," hissed Ginny, "people are looking."

"Fleur," Harry ordered, now in his element as it came to taking some action. "Please cast multiple notice-me-not charms on us all. Call Bill, Mad-Eye, and anyone else from our group, especially Remus if he can come, and get them to come to the Shrieking Shack. Ron, Ginny, Hermione wait here with her. Luna, Neville, help me get him into the Shrieking Shack."

Even weeks later, Fleur still was surprised by how complying with the orders felt like the most natural thing to do. As it was, everyone took their given positions, as Neville and Harry attempted to lug the man to the Shack, before Luna muttered something about stupid Gryffindors and simply pointed her wand at Dung and whispered, "Locomotor person!" Slightly abashed, the boys followed suit and helped out.

* * *

Remus, Mad-Eye and Molly rushed into the Shack with Fleur, Hermione, Ron and Ginny barely ten minutes after the first group had arrived.

"Harry, what...?" demanded the last Marauder.

In answer, Harry pointed at the thief's loot with an angry scowl.

"He is looting from Headquarters," Remus stated, slightly flummoxed by this. "He did that last year too."

"Harry, I know he is stealing your stuff..." Hermione started, screeching to a halt as Harry silenced her with an incredulous glare.

"I am very sorry if this offends you, but" he started quietly, "are all of you really this stupid or is it plain old incompetence?"

Molly raised a hand to cover her mouth and her eyes widened in shock, even as Harry was chastised in various ways by various people, except, noticeably, Luna, who in an unusually focussed manner declared, "He isn't wrong!" Harry, on the other hand, was glaring directly at Remus and Mad-Eye.

"What do you mean, Harry?" Remus asked with equanimity.

"You tell me, Remus. Or you tell me, Mad-Eye. Please convince me how a bloody damn thief stealing Black **_family crested_** stuff from the only hidden Black family house that he – a known Order member, since Wormtail must have told them about him and you showed me an old photograph of the Order with both in it – has access to, is not a security breach, never mind that unreliable Fidelius. Just a few trackers on Dung here and they know where to find it even if they can't get in. Where the bloody hell is your famous CONSTANT VIGILANCE, Mad-Eye, especially when it is fucking needed?"

Hermione and Fleur gasped as one.

"Damn!" swore the old Auror. "Bloody hell!" he swore again. "By Merlin, Potter is right!"

"And that is bloody without considering the fact that this scum here might be stealing and peddling dark enchanted objects, the sort of which the Black family was rumoured to have a-plenty to add to them being feared, to people who can replicate them and sell them on or worse, put them into the muggle side!" added Luna.

"Mon dieu!" muttered Fleur.

It took some time for tempers to cool. Harry and Luna right, but that didn't give him the leeway to go calling people stupid. He was also the first to cool down, and therefore the first to apologise.

"I am sorry," he mumbled. "I shouldn't have said that. I panicked, because I kept thinking of all the stuff that attacked us last year. If it gets out into the streets..."

"You shouldn't have," Molly agreed. She had not taken it personally, because the tirade had been aimed at Remus and Mad-Eye who were at Headquarters the most. All the same, none of her boys were supposed to lose their manners, and Harry had done so rather spectacularly. Yet, there was the fact that she couldn't disagree with the content. Mad-Eye put into words what she intended to say next, though. She hadn't really liked Mundungus Fletcher ever before, though, so she was hard-pressed to speak on his behalf.

"We bloody well deserved that, Potter, Lovegood," he conceded heavily. "I never paid attention to all that either. It was always Dung being Dung."

Harry shrugged jerkily while Luna gave a smile that seemed perfectly in tune with her usual countenance. Nobody said anything for a while, unsure about what they could say, making the silence uncomfortable.

"So what do we do?" Fleur asked. She was the one most removed, really.

"He is a traitor. I made the mistake of letting one go right here just over two years ago. Not again, I won't. Just kill him and be done."

Obviously Harry needed to cool down more. His objectivity was completely absconding.

"Take a walk, Harry," ordered Molly. "While I can see why you are angry, take a walk before you can get your head straight."

Harry gave her a mutinous, mulish glare.

"Now," she ordered with a tone of finality. Once he had stalked off, she turned to her son. "Go. Get him a butterbeer." Once they had left, Molly added her own incarcerating spell for good measure. "Conjure us some chairs, would you Remus? We might as well be comfortable while we wait."

Remus duly conjured a few chairs of the McGonagall kind.

"What do we do with him?" grunted Mad-Eye, pointing to the fallen thief with his prosthetic leg.

"Don't be impatient, Mad-Eye. It is up to Harry to decide."

"You seem to have forgotten, Molly. Potter wanted to kill him."

"I have handled worse tempers," was all that Molly said in reply. "It was and remains Harry's decision. We just have to ensure he doesn't make a bad one."

For the first time, Fleur had a new appreciation about the woman who would soon be her mother-in-law. Molly Weasley did have many faults, and among them was her nature to coddle her children and almost overprotect her children from the horrors of war. But now that things were personal for her, she was seeing a woman who was willing to make the effort to change. Seeing her handle Harry and Ron in much the same way that Bill had told her about his childhood at the Burrow, Fleur knew Molly really did consider Harry one of hers. She smiled. While Molly had not truly accepted Fleur yet, the young Frenchwoman knew that it would only be a matter of time.

Half an hour later, a fairly cooled down Harry returned with Ron, each carrying a crate of Butterbeer for their companions in the Shack. That was another instance of the bond the people shared, as Fleur could see it. After all, it was very normal in her family for people to bring ice cream on a whim, which was what the boys were doing.

"Better now?" asked Hermione in concern.

"After the git guzzled two whole bottles," grumbled Ron good-naturedly. "He didn't speak a word till he was done."

Harry just blushed and mumbled another apology as everyone chugged the warm buttery drink.

"So what do you want to do now?" Molly asked. "It better be sensible."

"It is," Harry answered in a small voice. "I don't know if it is possible."

"Yes?"

"I want him to never steal from the Order of the Phoenix ever again, to return everything he stole from the Headquarters, from Order members, and from my parents, to give me a list of every person who bought the stuff from him, and to never set foot on any property I own. And I want it to mean something. He cannot just say that he promises, because I don't care about his promises. He is a liar and a thief."

"Very good, boy!" praised Mad-Eye gruffly. "We will get him to do the Unbreakable Vow."

"Alastor!" gasped Molly, even as Harry asked, "A what?"

"What?" the Auror snapped. "You said we would allow Potter to decide, and come to a fair and sensible decision; it follows that we'd abide by that. Potter may not know about the Vow. It is a fair and correct decision." He dismissed her with a slight glare and turned to the boy. "An Unbreakable Vow means that if Fletcher breaks the Vow he dies."

There was a moment in which the Auror stared the boy in the eyes. If he stood back now, and was cowed by the prospect of death for the thief, he would be failure. If instead, he chose to go through with the Vow, then Alastor knew the boy would be the one to trust, and there would be no greater compliment from the super-paranoid Auror.

"I did say," Harry finally said slowly as he moved to look at the stunned thief, "that I would not spare a traitor. Maybe this is a summary judgement. Maybe he is no traitor, but he still is a thief who can put everything at risk. I would like to have the Vow, to be sure, though if there is any demand that needs to be added or you deem to be excessive, it should be decided now."

Mad-Eye Moody grunted and had a look of approval on his face. "I agree with Molly's son. You should have been turned over to him and me early. We wouldn't have lost last year."

He then proceeded to securely tie Dung's legs and enervate him before forcing the man to his knees. Dung, it turned out, really was only a thief and a stupid liar but no traitor.

Harry took great pleasure reading him the riot act.

"You can't do this to me!" shouted Dung in utter desperation. "I am a part of the Order!"

"You are a liar. I can and will do this to you, or turn you over to the Aurors. I am sure a lengthy stay in Azkaban can be arranged."

"No!"

"The Vow then, please," Harry mock-amiably demanded.

Dung made to squirm and protest when he found nine wands being pointed at him. He capitulated with a whimper.

"Don't you understand?" he shouted in a last-ditch attempt. "How can I get what they bought, when I am not even always sure who bought it?"

"You are the thief, Dung," Ron finally broke in. "It's your job after all."

The man looked like he would cry.

"Oh, come now, Dung," Harry added, with a sudden impulse of inspiration. "I will give you help. KREACHER!" he called out loud.

"Dirty half-blood is calling Kreacher, oh what would Mistress say?" muttered the elf as he appeared, dishevelled as always.

"Stand up you filthy little traitor!" snarled Harry, dismissing Hermione's scowl and angry hiss. "You are remiss in your duties to House Black, elf! You shall follow these orders, to the letter, and without circumventing them in any manner!"

A rictus of rage adorned the elf's face before he bowed low, muttering invectives under his breath.

"You," he started only to stop as he remembered just how the elf had betrayed Sirius. He would have to be exceedingly careful in his orders. "You shall help Mundungus Fletcher get everything he has stolen from the people stipulated to him back at our House. You shall not contact the Malfoys and the Lestranges ever again in any form and shall actively seek to harm them if they contact you and not reply. No person supporting Voldemort or Tom Riddle, no person bearing the Dark Mark, and no elf belonging to such a family will ever be welcome in the House of Black or Potter! You shall never use any form of abuse against muggleborns or half-bloods or those that you call blood traitors. And remove that dirty portrait of Walburga Black at the House and burn it in my presence!"

Kreacher shrieked as if physically struck at the end of these orders. Harry might as well have killed him. "BAD MASTER! BAD MASTER!" he hollered as he pounded the floor with his fists.

"I did not give you leave to speak, you disgraced elf!" thundered Harry. Merlin, but it felt nice to finally do something about this little vermin. "Be silent and follow the orders given to you," he paused and calmed for a bit, adding, "Ensure that you take adequate rest and eat properly, while following them." He growled again, "Have this work done before Yule! And everything that you recover has to be presented to me and whomever I choose to help me for inspection when I come to the house at Yuletide. If you try to steal for yourself, or hide anything, I shall give you clothes! Am I understood?"

Kreacher looked as if he wanted nothing better than to decapitate Harry, but grit his teeth and nodded with a guttural, "Yes Master." Then he snarled in an unholy manner at Mundungus. At least he would get to torment the thief.

"Mundungus is to be kept unharmed and healthy. And, now that I remember, you are to check yourself for any manner of tracking and dispel it before every trip back to the house. Beware of people lingering around Grimmauld Place." Harry added. "Go!"

The thief and the elf were popped away by the latter. Harry looked physically worn out and disgusted with himself as he slumped into a chair.

"That," commented Remus, after a prolonged pause, "was unexpected."

"It was necessary, Lupin," grunted Mad-Eye. "I have stopped asking questions about why these things weren't done before."

"Why did you treat Kreacher..." started Hermione indignantly.

"Shut up please." It was not an angry or haughty tone that Harry used to say something he would have never said to Hermione, ever. It was weary, tired. It still shocked everyone though. "Don't support him now. You want elves to be treated as normal people? That's great. Normal people can betray, are cruel and need to be punished as befits their beliefs and culture when they do wrong. I shall not suffer a traitor. You can't have things both ways. It worries me that how I treated Kreacher worries you more than the fact that Dung might die if he fails."

That argument did shut her up. She was angry and insulted, yes, but she was also unable to give a suitable reply.

In that moment, though, he had won the respect of everyone else. It needed to be done and it was, in reality a tough decision. He had done it though. And irrespective of whether or not it actually helped the war efforts, it certainly would make the Headquarters safer than they had ever seemed before.

It was the moment Mad-Eye Moody's allegiances shifted completely. The orders were as thorough as he would have liked them to be. He expressed that in the only way he knew. "Keep being as vigilant, Potter, and we might just not lose."

* * *

It was a rather sullen group that was making its way back to Hogwarts, earlier than the time when the carriages came to take the students back. It had not been the best Hogsmeade visit. Hermione looked extremely angry and chastised. Ginny had gone off back to where she would be meeting Dean, and Ron was delivering a lengthy monologue (something about the Quidditch team) while Neville and Luna were silent. There was nothing much to say for them, as they didn't know the people involved too well. Harry though had a worried, pensive and broody look, one which seemed more at home on his face lately. Ron had even teased him for a small smattering of white hair.

The quiet was broken soon by a small squabble between Katie Bell and her friend Leanne.

"What's going on?" wondered Neville aloud; glad to have something else to think of.

The five hurried over to them, just in time to see Katie shout at her friend and engage her in a small tussle over a package. What exactly happened they couldn't see, but the next moment, **Katie rose into the air, gracefully, her arms outstretched, as though she was about to fly. Yet there was something wrong, something eerie... Her hair was whipped around her by the fierce wind, but her eyes were closed and her face was quite empty of expression.**

 **Then, six feet above the ground, Katie let out a terrible scream. Her eyes flew open but whatever she could see, or whatever she was feeling, was clearly causing her terrible anguish. She screamed and screamed; Leanne started to scream too and seized Katie's ankles, trying to tug her back to the ground. The five rushed forward to help, but even as they grabbed Katie's legs, she fell on top of them; Harry and Ron managed to catch her but she was writhing so much they could hardly hold her. Instead they lowered her to the ground where she thrashed and screamed, apparently unable to recognize any of them.**

"What's happening?" a panicking Leanne asked.

"She's been cursed," supplied Luna in a very calm, yet focussed tone. "Get a teacher please," she ordered the boys, who took off.

Luckily, Hagrid was close by, and once he was able to hear what had happened, he did not waste a moment as he scooped Katie in his arms and rushed off to the castle. It turned out she was imperiused, and that the necklace in the package was to be taken to the castle for someone. It was a clear murder attempt, if such miniscule contact had such horrible effects.

"I know that Malfoy knows about it. This necklace was in Borgin and Burkes," Hermione remembered suddenly. "I saw him looking at it covetously several times."

Their suspicions about Draco Malfoy's criminal proclivities had just got greater base.


	4. Mundane and Mysteries

**Mundane and Mysteries**

A/N: Thanks to all the followers, favouriteers, and reviewers: ArtimuosJackson, Laurentius Williame, DRAGONSAGE-25, sassy (guest), FierceDeityLinkMask, surviversp, katmom, guest, WriternotAuthor, ObsessedWithHPFanFic, Rori Potter, Lazymanjones96, Doni2, god of all, and u888320.

* * *

"I still don't see why you chose to keep silent about Malfoy being the one who gave Katie the necklace," Ginny complained again. "You didn't seem particularly interested in nailing that bastard," she accused.

She only got an exasperated frown from Harry for that.

It was the second time she was saying that, and truthfully, it wasn't she who had asked the question to begin with. It was Hermione. She however had only needed a few words to understand and withdraw her objections – "The Philosopher's Stone, Umbridge... need I say more?" Well, not that easily, of course; Hermione had hemmed and hawed over it for close to fifteen minutes before she was convinced, but it was negligible compared to most other instances of hiding things from McGonagall – except Trolls.

In another set of events, maybe Hermione would have played the Devil's Advocate for Malfoy or even for Professor McGonagall. But having had an admonishment from the Order within the Order about Vigilance, and being suspicious about everything and everyone had tempered that before she had followed Malfoy during his Knockturn Alley sojourns and reached to conclusions all on her own. And while she still trusted authority, she trusted Harry more.

If that wasn't enough, the suspicious silence that the boy maintained and the concerted efforts he took to **_not_** be seen, or observed, sometimes evading people he was known to associate with altogether made things seem murkier. An attention-seeking, jumped-up, arrogant pissant was Draco Malfoy. Running errands and hiding, when Voldemort was out and about and was killing "mudbloods", was really not Malfoy's style.

Of course, that didn't stop the others from needling Harry about it for the third time (cumulatively) in the hour since they had found Katie. It had more to do with the fact that Harry was actively trying to find a way to get the necklace to Bill with a message instead of telling McGonagall and Snape everything, or helping with the investigation. Her misgivings about McGonagall's inaction the previous year aside, she really did think that the Head of Gryffindor could be trusted to take a strong stand on matters of student safety.

Given the fact that they had come to trust the eldest Weasley brother a lot, and that he was a curse-breaker, and the fact that Kingsley Shacklebolt and Mad-Eye Moody were among the people who were helping them out, it made more sense to involve them in some way – well, at least till he was required to hand the necklace over before he came under suspicion.

He still had managed to cast seventeen of twenty-seven different detection spells and charms and six curse identification rune arrays (which needed to be etched and so obviously weren't used) that Bill had drilled into him during the time it was being held while Hagrid had been found and McGonagall had come. It was one of the first rules – when faced with danger, identify it.

Harry had asked the eldest Weasley brother to teach him and Bill had no time for amateur enthusiasts who would lose interest soon, and so had given him a very heavy task for a layman. But he had found a willing student in Harry who thrived under the load. He had not expected that, honestly. The notebook containing meticulous notes that Hermione, Fleur and Bill had rigorously checked for mistakes, was always with Harry, along with the Invisibility Cloak, the shrunken photo albums, the Marauders' Map and his wand.

Given that only the magnitude detection spell (which gave a general indication of how much magic any enchanted object contained) gave a numerical reading which was shocking, and eight of the rest gave varying shades of blood red, dark blue, dark green and degrees of black, he knew it was a very, _very_ dark object. The other eight tests had not given results and the magnitude detector told why. The only thing to do was write to his mentor and keep him apprised of the event and how much his teachings had been put to use.

"I agree with her here, Harry," Neville said firmly. He knew he wouldn't be brushed off as he often was previously by many others – including Harry, Ron and Hermione in their first year. "This is a matter of school safety."

"Which is exactly why I am telling the Aurors everything Neville," Hermione pointed out, waving her quill absently over her head. "I am writing to King. And I am writing to him as a part of our group."

"That's what I am asking. Harry just spoke about the Stone and Umbridge and you were convinced. You forget that we really weren't close friends for much of our time in our past school years," he pointed out peevishly.

That drew Hermione away from her letter. She scrutinised Harry, Ron, Ginny and Neville in turn before nodding.

"You are right. We weren't close. So many things were constantly happening that we never really became close to others. I am sorry that you if you felt hurt or slighted," she said ruefully, as Harry and Ron echoed their apologies. Then suddenly there was a fierce gleam in her eyes as she challenged, "Do you honestly think, Neville, that before I petrified you that night in the common room, we did not go to Professor McGonagall? We did. She shooed us away. We were wrong about the identity of the potential thief, yes, but I should think that three eleven-year-olds knowing about a supposedly heavily guarded object that nobody was even supposed to know was in the school should have rung alarm bells for her. She ignored us. Harry fought Voldemort that night.

"When Harry went to tell her about his detentions last year, when that horrid toad carved those dreadful words into his hands, she ignored him. Malfoy has abused, bullied and hounded us openly all these years, and not a thing was done. While we may only suspect him of being a Death Eater, we can't actually accuse him of trying to murder Katie. But those two things are linked. I simply do not trust Professor McGonagall enough to even hear us out."

The other four found their jaws dropping at that last statement. The mind boggled. Hermione Granger not trusting a teacher? And not just any other teacher, but she didn't trust McGonagall?

"Who are you and what have you done to Hermione Granger?" asked Dean, who had just perched on the arm of Ginny's chair and caught the last words of Hermione's diatribe.

She speared him with a light glare.

"She actually ignored you when you told her about the stone?" Neville asked wide-eyed.

Harry and Ron nodded. "She even claimed to know what was going on," Ron added. "It turned out that nobody truly did."

"So you don't think that the Aurors will be called," Dean shrewdly observed.

"No," agreed Harry. "They would already be here if that was the case. How long does it take to apparate from London to Hogsmeade, or to Floo?"

"How long, indeed," agreed Dean. Though he was a muggleborn, he knew some things. "So you are informing the Aurors."

"You could say that." Harry wasn't sure how much he could trust Dean, who was around their little group as often as Lavender was these days, but he was certainly not the flighty kind and he listened more than he spoke and when he did speak he had something meaningful to say.

Dean turned to Ginny. "You don't seem convinced."

"I am not convinced that not telling her is the right idea."

Harry gave Ginny a frank, appraising look, before he exchanged a glance with Hermione. She had had problems dealing with the fact that not everybody in authority was helpful. "Well, you have the choice of telling Professor McGonagall yourself, Ginny."

"Even after you decide not to?" Ginny asked apprehensively.

"Yes. It's your choice. The only things that can happen are these; that we will turn out to be needlessly pessimistic, or you will be disappointed, and learn."

"Do you really not mind?" Neville asked again in confirmation.

"Why should I? You trust her to act in our best interests."

"Then I shall go with Ginny. Or rather, since she wasn't around at that time, I shall go myself."

"Just ensure that those aren't _Harry's, Hermione's or mine_ suspicions," Ron temporised.

"Fair enough," accepted Neville, as he stood and left.

* * *

"Professor McGonagall?" stuttered Neville, as he knocked on the Head of Gryffindor's office door. He took a deep breath to firm his resolve. He was going to speak. He believed it was right and he was going to do this.

"Mr. Longbottom," said the stern tone of Minerva McGonagall, "do come in."

"Thank you, Professor." Neville fidgeted a bit as Minerva went back to her paperwork while he approached the chair she had dismissively pointed him to. When she did not look up even after he had taken a seat right across her, he grimaced and cleared his throat a bit. That was one nasty habit many students seemed to have learnt from Umbridge.

McGonagall raised an eyebrow archly, an action designed to intimidate. Neville stood his ground, albeit a bit shakily, forcing her to ask "Was there something you wished to say?"

"Yes Professor. It is about the attack on Katie, Professor."

"What do you have to add, Mr. Longbottom?"

"Professor," Neville replied, carefully phrasing his words to get around her very obvious non-cooperation, giving her the benefit of doubt in that she was probably being stoic to hide her distress over the incident, "there is reason to believe that this was a murder attempt, and that it is likely that Katie was only a trial or an unintended victim."

"I am sorry Mr. Longbottom, but these conjectures and theories will not hold water as we investigate."

"Why are you investigating? Isn't it the job of the Aurors?" Neville blurted out.

"The Aurors will be informed in due time," McGonagall replied, in a clipped tone, even as her lips pursed into a thin white line.

"You haven't even informed the Aurors? There was an attack, a nearly fatal one!" Neville was a Gryffindor, and he was also at the end of his tether. He was also devastated to find out that the predictions of his friends were true.

"I did not give you leave to shout at me! I am quite aware..."

"You are aware," interrupted Neville in a strangled voice. "Are you aware that Malfoy is a Death Eater? Are you aware that he might have hurt Katie?"

"That is a serious accusation," she acknowledged sharply. "Do you have any proof?"

Second-hand though it was, Neville relayed the information to her, desperately hoping that the woman would come around.

"Unfortunately, anyone who knows him will say that it was just an angry young boy mouthing off in the aftermath of his father's imprisonment. There is not concrete proof."

"But he attacked..."

"As a matter-of-fact, Mr. Malfoy did not attack anyone at all. He was serving a detention with me."

Neville looked at her aghast and in dismay. Standing right there, with the knowledge of Polyjuice Potion being used by Death Eaters within the castle, and with the knowledge that the woman knew of it and would only twist the fact to suit her belief of Malfoy being innocent of the crime, Neville saw a woman he trusted fall from her pedestal.

"If that is all, Mr. Longbottom..."

"Yes Professor, that **_is_** all," Neville heavily said, reproach heavy in his eyes. "I am sorry to have troubled you at all." He strode away to the door, before he added bitterly and spitefully, yet ever so softly, "And I apologise for expecting better of you."

McGonagall's eyes dimmed. Neville didn't know or care. He did not look back.

* * *

By the time Neville returned to the common room, Hermione was done with the letter, and was sealing it. His fellow Gryffindor sixth years had apparently finished off their assignments and stuff, and were arrayed in a wide manner of disarray. Ron was, as usual, playing Chess with himself. Harry was lounging on the floor by the fire, reading a book (it was disconcerting; that was Hermione's domain – ah, of course), with his feet in a chair, and Dean and Ginny were being acceptably decent and discreet while they indulged in their relationship thing, though they dropped that and looked at him expectantly the moment they saw him. He felt like a bit of a prick as he sat down heavily in a chair, his face set in a dismayed frown.

"She brushed you off," Harry astutely guessed, not even bothering to look up from the book as he idly turned the page.

"There is no proof, Longbottom," Ron snapped in an uncanny imitation.

"You might as well have been there," Neville said dully. He shook his head.

"She didn't even hear you out?" Ginny asked, equally unhappy at the turn of events.

"She did, just enough to assuage her idea of a Deputy Mistress, probably. He was in detention with her, apparently," he moodily muttered as he poured himself some water.

"That's wilful blindness," Hermione allowed, her discomfort at the idea that McGonagall would go down the same path as most of the rest of the Magical World and refuse to see the obvious being more apparent than ever. "If an on-the-run Barty Crouch Jr. and Pettigrew could get Polyjuice, the chances that Malfoy couldn't get Crabbe or Goyle..."

Neville emphatically gestured towards her with his half-full glass as he noisily gulped and agreed, "That was just what I was thinking. Then I realised that she could just as easily claim that – if there were any eyewitnesses who could say Malfoy was in Hogsmeade to start with – the person in Hogsmeade was Malfoy. And for all the suspicion, I doubt we can find one of those. I realised that while I was there." He drank up the rest of the water. "I am sorry. I should have taken your word for it. They haven't called the Aurors, and they will update the Aurors with the results of their investigations. I was disappointed."

"Welcome to the club," Ron dispassionately said.

Ginny stared at the rather lacklustre and laconic conversation wildly. "How can you be so unaffected?" she shrilly demanded. "We just found out that our Deputy Headmistress can't be arsed enough to go to the root of a murder attempt on a student, or even to call Aurors! She just showed us that she can't be trusted! She has just become one of the people who believed the "Imperius Curse" defence! We can't even trust her to stand by us in a fight anymore now!"

"We actually can trust her in a battle, you know," Harry absently remarked. "She just cannot see the infiltration – will not see it. She trusts Dumbledore to know and act. No amount of bashing our heads on that wall will help. That's why Hermione wrote the letter."He sat up and winced; he had been lying in an awkward position. "And Neville, what are you sorry for? You were willing to stick your neck out for what you thought was right, and ideally, it should have been, but you were disappointed. That's all. I am sorry for that. We just had five years over you in the experience department, there."

Neville just huffed and got down to his own essays. It was worse than disappointing, but at least nobody thought ill of him for trying to help what _should_ have been an investigation. He would trust his friends more now. It all came down to that.

Ginny wasn't done though. "And the Aurors can't come unless Dumbledore lets them, and they aren't willing to listen! Do we let them get away?" she demanded.

"Who said that?" Harry asked slyly.

She wasn't sure she quite liked the wicked smile that Harry smothered almost a moment later. He had looked far too much like Fred and George, or Sirius in that moment, when just for a moment it had seemed that he had some sort of plan up his sleeve. She wasn't sure she really wanted to know

* * *

The following Monday's lesson with Dumbledore seemed to be wrongly scheduled, seeing how he wasn't even in the castle at breakfast or lunch that day. He was there, however, for the lesson.

"I hear you had quite the busy Hogsmeade visit," Dumbledore softly remarked.

"Busy would not be the word of choice," Harry replied, not liking the way Dumbledore said it. "Katie is a great friend and whichever way anyone tries to dress it up..." he trailed off and shrugged wearily. He would not say what Neville had already spoken to McGonagall. "How is she?"

"By her good luck, she had just the barest of contact and therefore is alive, and certainly expected to make a full recovery," Dumbledore replied. "Severus, of course, was able to contain the spread of the curse in time."

"Yes, a justification for his love of the Dark Arts and continued practice of them was **_very_** necessary," he murmured sarcastically, almost so low that Dumbledore nearly missed it. Even as he said it, a thought came to his mind and he couldn't resist his eyes darting towards Dumbledore's hand.

"You do Severus a great disservice, Harry. He is and has always been..."

"Absolutely nobody that I would trust, others' opinions notwithstanding," Harry retorted, "No matter who these "others" might be. Do not demand the impossible please, Professor. About Katie..."

"I receive regular reports from St. Mungo's and there is certain hope that she shall make a full recovery." The tone of finality declared the topic over for both.

Harry nodded, before prodding, "I wondered whether you would be there for the lesson today, sir."

"No need to worry on that account, Harry, though I do believe, I shall need to relate some things about the time I spend away from the castle to you soon," Dumbledore replied with a twinkle in his eyes at Harry's gentle prodding.

"I suppose this is in some way related to what you are teaching me," remarked the student, as he watched Dumbledore pour the memory into the Pensieve.

"It is. And it makes me feel better to see you thinking things through, especially with what else happened in Hogsmeade. I had a terrified Mundungus trying to reach me to get around your Unbreakable Vow."

"Did you find one?"Harry asked.

"I must confess that for the longest time, I was unhappy with the idea of you using such magic, never mind the wording itself. As Mundungus happened to tell me, you had quite the party in attendance. Molly, it seems, overreacted to your call for help, or so Alastor claims."

"She was the only Order member that I thought to call in first. I have not forgotten her claim upon me."

Dumbledore smiled sadly as he remembered hearing about the squabble between Sirius, lost so young, and Molly. It was a good thing that Harry had found her to be someone whom he could turn to for help unreservedly.

"Indeed. It was Alastor who explained your motives," and here Dumbledore's eyes dimmed alarmingly. "To my shame, I have been at fault in the matter. It escaped our notice, and was a collective failure. I therefore have not directed my energies towards helping Mundungus. Rest assured that Mundungus' indiscretions shall not be allowed to continue."

"Thank you, sir." He refrained from saying that the words had been put together by Remus and Mad-Eye, to ensure that Dung didn't get away unpunished, never mind "allowed to continue".

Dumbledore peered over is half-moon glasses at the boy surreptitiously. There was a lot that he was hiding – no, not hiding; rather there was a lot that Harry was wilfully ignoring or neglecting to mention. For the life of him Dumbledore couldn't decide whether that was good or bad. On balance though, it felt like there was a widening distance between them, one that Dumbledore could not fathom.

The memories themselves yielded nothing more than the facts that Merope Gaunt, in dire straits, had been fleeced of her most prized possession by Burke of the Dark Artefacts shop, and had died soon after her son was born. So Tom had started off with his own mother. The second one showed Dumbledore being the one to bring him to Hogwarts, but more importantly, the character traits of Tom – he was a lying, manipulative, thieving child who revelled in causing hurt to others. He also **_expected obedience_** from people around him. In other words, he always was Voldemort in the making, though, given the fact that Harry was hardly looking at the matter through unbiased eyes, it was probably too early for the younger Dumbledore to pass any judgement upon what Tom would become. Tom also **_Hated_** (with the accents and the capital H) being common. His thieving too had a pattern – the stolen items were trophies, important to him because they were important to those he stole from or tormented.

"So apart from the fact that little Tom never truly changed and was always a psychopathic little b...boy, the more important things to notice are the ones he stole?"

"Yes, Harry, that is quite astute."

"And you showed me the locket, and you had the ring, which means Tom stole both and they were important to him. Why?"

"He stole many other things, Harry," Dumbledore stated mildly.

Harry was not the cleverest person around, but he too could see the test. "They merited memories of their own. Tom's thieving was just context."

"I am happy to say that you indeed are taking the lesson well. Good Night, Harry."

* * *

"I still think he is a bit touched in the head these days," Ron commented sagely. "What's the point of telling you about these things?"

"I am trying to connect the dots Ron, but I keep missing something, something important which will bring it all together."

"Well, don't worry," Hermione pacified. "The others will be able to at least understand what the things in the memory meant, now that you are so sure that the things were important, and not Tom himself."

"I hope so."

Their conversation, taking place as they donned protective gear before going to war with a Snargaluff stump in Herbology, veered towards more mundane matters of Slughorn, his parties and the people he favoured before Professor Sprout scolded them for chatting. It was only after they were done, with Ron writing it off his list of garden plants for his future home, that Hermione dropped the bomb.

"You have got yourself quite the fan in Slughorn, Harry. He is organising this Christmas Party, and he has been asking around to ensure that your schedule is free."

Harry groaned, even as Ron's anger seemed about to boil over. He was really not happy to be passed over. Harry's words though turned that stone cold.

"What does he think I am? Another Death Eater over whom to fawn? Moony told me he absolutely gushed over the Malfoys and ditched Padfoot when his folks threw him out. I don't want to be associated with that kind of a person, much less one who kicked Padfoot while he was down," Harry fumed. "Even Mrs. Weasley told me how he was nothing more than an obsequious buffoon around people with influence and passed her over even though she used to get O's!"

Hermione moved to puncture both boys' anger as she talked about Snargaluff pods and puncturing them. She was a girl, though, and while the Yule Ball two years ago was nice, she really would have liked to go to the Party with a real date.

* * *

Quite contrary to people's perception of what a joke shop actually meant, Fred and George were up past midnight almost every day. Inventory, supply management, stockpiling market sensitive stuff which had volatile pricing, proper safety precautions...the list was endless, and that was without coming up with new stuff. Who said that joke shops weren't serious business?

The last thing they usually did was going through their non-business correspondences. There was the usual weekly letter their mother sent them, ordering them to be present on the weekends for lunch and dinner. Then there was the separate letter their father sent them, telling them about some new thing he had dismantled, some serious news and just telling them they could always look to him for help with...stuff. And people thought they were more like their uncles. One of their brothers would write occasionally too.

That night they had another. Truth be told, Verity, their assistant, wasn't sure whether to put it in the business box or the personal box, but had just gone along. They were cool employers, so they would simply tell her otherwise.

Harry had sent them a letter. He was their very close friend, and also their business partner. And he was also the face of the war, as his warning regarding customer intents and identities had driven home.

"Fred, I think ickle Harrykins is on to something here," George solemnly remarked. In private, their roles were defined and seriousness, though not always, did have its own place. It was their way of having a world of their own. He waved the letter at his twin, beckoning him to read it.

With a face etched with curiosity, Fred marched over to his brother and sat down to read.

 _Fred and George,_

 _I am sure this letter will find you in good spirits, and hopefully not dousing yourselves with spirits because somehow Mrs. Weasley will know and you will have buttocks to match the red rumps of monkeys._

"That's a good one. We'll have to use it sometime," George pointed out.

"Hmmm... yes. That's some Padfoot'd influence, I see."

 _Obligatory attempt at cracking a joke aside, I write this letter very seriously. Too put it bluntly, for one, I have a business idea/proposition/whatever you may want to call it. And two, I am going to threaten you with disinvestment if a condition is not met._

"He is doing WHAT?" yelled Fred, the more hot-headed of the two. His brother grabbed him and jabbed a finger at the letter with a very set face. The message was clear – "Read before you go berserk, you buffoon."

 _By this time, I am sure you will be seething, so I will go straight to the threat first. You sell Love Potions. Stop it. Do not delay. There already have been attempts to ensnare me, which Hermione has cracked down upon –_

"Yes, she is protecting her territory, you clueless idiot," Fred muttered."

 _But worse still is the fact that I have just found out. Love Potions are one of the reasons we are in this war-mess. Turns out that old Tommy Riddle's (Mouldy-farts as Padfoot would've called him) mum dosed his father with some, and stopped once they conceived the monster-baby. Tom Riddle Sr. took one look at Mummy Merope and ran off. Merope died, Tommy grows up angry, and here we are, left fighting Chief Death Eater and his little harem. Ask Bill, Fleur or Mrs. Weasley if you don't believe me._

 _Point being: Love Potions may lead to rape, which was what Merope did to Tom's muggle father. In essence, she controlled him, and might as well have had him under the Imperius Curse. Now I don't know the potency of whatever it is that you sell, but I'd be a poor investor and a poorer friend if I didn't ensure that our products are not dangerous._

 _Just to ensure that you don't have second thoughts about things though, let me add this. Currently, there are quite a few suitors of your little sister that are being fended off by dint of her being Dean Thomas' girlfriend. No, I didn't snitch him out to you, in case you didn't know about him, so that you can dig a hole for him. It is the other suitors that worry me. Most blokes look at her like a piece of meat – do you know that McLaggen bloke? A bloke like Malfoy might try to honey-trap her, and use her. I am sure you get what I am trying to say. I don't think that business is worth the risk of becoming Uncles to the newest Malfoy._

"It most certainly isn't," agreed the twins simultaneously and heavily. If Tom Riddle's history wasn't bad enough, there was the information about people eyeing their sister. And the less said about Malfoy, the better.

"We need to repurpose the existing supplies though," George pointed out.

"We will work something out. And may I say that in future, we might have to consider the consequences better."

"Quite what I thought," agreed the other.

 _With the bad news out of the way, I shall come to the business proposition. Now, I know that this is strictly_ **not** _joke stuff, but you are the only ones I know who can come up with something – and more importantly, whom I can trust to keep this silent for a while._

 _Coming back to little sister and her boyfriend, who, as I write, are being sickeningly lovey-dovey, making me feel happy about the fact that I missed lunch, they have a rather spiffing idea._

"I don't know about him not snitching them out to us, but a friendly consultation with Mr. Thomas seems necessary, don't you think?" George asked with deceptive mildness.

"Perhaps a joke version of whatever it is that they have thought of?" Fred innocently suggested.

George's grin was answer enough.

 _In each attack, lives are quickly being lost because people can't reach the healers, or the healers can't reach them in time. Hedwig's currently at Hermione's folks' place and she will get you a sample soon of what we call a first-aid box. It's the smaller version, and you might be able to build something better with Potions and other stuff. It is an essential for every home now. Anytime, anywhere, anyone can get hurt, and the first-aid box, which contains potions in stasis so that they don't go bad, is ever useful – stops you from alienating your suppliers when you shut down the Love Potions business. It also goes well with your Shield Hats and stuff._

 _Just think about it at least._

"Rest assured, young Harry, think we shall. We may even act upon it," George murmured. One of his biggest concerns was addressed. For a new business, removing a product line had many repercussions, particularly up a supply chain with developing relations with the suppliers. They could easily project this as their attempts to corner the market with innovations, ones that needed much less material, research and labour development, if he had imagined the box right.

 _And last, but not the least is an idea that your existing invention, Decoy Detonators. Only, if they could be sneakily silent, invisible except to the user in some way, and could double up as explosives, or searching devices, or load-carrying devices..._

 _I can almost imagine one of those things sneaking up on Mad-Eye and shouting "Constant Vigilance!"_

 _It also will help with quick escapes if cornered, provided the wrong sort doesn't get their hands on them._

 _You know, with the stuff Bill has been teaching me, I wonder how much of a difference there really is between what he can do, and what you could do. You just apply stuff elsewhere. You could also get Mrs. Weasley off your backs – you are only helping protect people, without getting into the fights yourselves. Just don't tell her that I said that._

"And this proves his familial connections. Of course he won't think small," Fred gleefully remarked. Who else got to prank Mad-Eye without getting hexed? "It's a good thing that we moved in early and got him for ourselves, George."

"Quite right, brother," George absently agreed. "What do you think of the Marauding Protections?"

"Marauding Protections? That's catchy."

 _Still hoping to be your business partner,_

 _Harry._

* * *

Harry could hardly sleep. Hermione and Krum-Scum; Hermione and _Krum; Hermione_ and Krum; the images were so horrible, so horrible that Harry nearly had terrible indigestion just thinking about them. Then again it would have been true if he thought of Hermione and anyone else. The images scared him more than anything. She was always there. She was **_always_** supposed to be there. He couldn't think of any way in which he could function if she wasn't. What was he to do?

Ron and Ginny's altercation affected Ron and Harry in wildly different ways. Ginny was, to her brother, always supposed to be the untouched, unscathed little angel (which she wasn't. She was no angel, ever). So seeing her kissing meant Mount Ron was about to blow, while Harry wondered whether smuggling some crisps as they fought would be appropriate.

That was until Ginny threw Hermione and Krum snogging into their face. And it went downhill fast from there.

Even Dean could see that Harry looked like a whipped dog, and glared at his girlfriend as reproachfully as the situation allowed with Ron in attendance – and as much as he could get away with. Ron soldiered on, berating his sister and they came to magical blows which meant they were both stunned, and taken back to Gryffindor tower.

( _Dean himself wasn't sure what to say into the awkward silence, as he trudged back up to the tower, levitating his girlfriend, while Harry, who seemed to sag right off his bones, brought her brother along. The poor guy had it bad. Maybe, he would have to take the initiative and get Ginny onto their case. It was agonising watching the two; pining for each other but never taking a step forward._ )

All in all, with the terrible practices – particularly Ron, the jangly-nerved Keeper – and the prospect of not having Hermione all for himself (and he felt oddly guilty and yet inexplicably defiant about this own selfishness), it made for a very antsy Gryffindor captain. And desperate people do desperate things.

Perhaps having Hermione disappointed with him and causing a rift between her and Ron was not the side-effect he had intended – he hadn't intended for any at all. But it had happened. Gryffindor had won the match, but Harry had lost.

What was he supposed to do? It was only a trick, a sleight of hand. It wasn't illegal at all

Hermione didn't return from her daylong sulk which she spent with Luna, away from the Quidditch team, while the rest of the House was treated to a scene of unholy terror as Ron and Lavender fused their mouths smack-bang in the middle of the room. Of course, there were cheers after a moment of stunned silence.

Sometimes, the days were so topsy-turvy, that they never felt real.

Hermione was talking to a glum-faced Luna. It seemed like girl talk.

"Exceptional," Harry muttered to himself. "Now I can't butt in without seeming to be a prick."

"Do you have anything to say, Harry?" Hermione archly asked.

Harry jumped. When did she realise he was there? Then Luna waved at him glumly; of course, she could see him.

"It's...ah...I'll come later. Luna needs you it seems..."

"And you do now," Luna declared. "It is okay."

Caught between the two, Harry just shyly approached Hermione. "I...um...sorry?" he stuttered out with charming eloquence.

That certainly perked Luna up as she broke into a fit of giggles, which made Hermione smile, which in turn made Harry feel a bit relieved.

"What are you sorry for?" she patiently asked.

"I actually don't know," he confessed after a moment's hesitation. "Your vigilance wasn't a part of the plan, really. I intended for Ron to see me hiding the bottle, but you did, and it actually made better impact. I guess I am just sorry for using your interference when I had to improvise. I didn't mean for you two to fight."

"And Ron was not actually looking, so my interference actually helped your plan along," Hermione added, kneading her brows between her thumb and an index finger. "That's...I don't know what to say, but I can't say I didn't know how Ron would react." She shook her head. "I will talk to him. We shall sort this out. I suppose that's why I stayed out of range. He is never willing to listen once he has got something in his mind, is he?"

"I suppose not."

"Well then," she murmured with a tone of finality as she moved to stand.

"Er...about that," he shiftily interrupted. "Take my word for this please. You'd be better off staying away from Ron at the moment. It's not a pretty sight. I am sure half the common room has made itself scarce."

"He is that angry?" Hermione asked with a frown.

"Angry?" a nonplussed Harry asked, before getting things straightened. "No. No. He has far more...enjoyable things on his mind. You know, Lavender," he helplessly explained.

Hermione winced, even as Luna wilted further and made ran away without seeming to actually run away. Hermione spied Harry's questioning expression and explained, "Luna wanted to be in Lavender's place."

Now it was Harry's turn to wince. Who knew that small things could snowball into something like this? At this rate, it was only Neville and he who were on talking terms with the rest of their group. This was a complete dog's breakfast. Sometimes, he just couldn't do one thing right.

* * *

Note: Love Potions do not play any role beyond what is mentioned, at all.


	5. Long Awaited

**Long Awaited**

A/N: Thanks to all readers, followers, favouriteers and reviewers: Guest, katmom, ObsessedWithHPFanFic, survivorsp, Ada1229, ArtimuosJackson, decadenceofmysoul, Jarno, KnowInsight, sachaelle, sassy (guest), DRAGONSAGE-25, CoolFanfictionLover, alix33 (x4), and dhamann7878.

I am done with my school-ending exams, and they were fairly good. Now I intend to write for **_'Leader'_** and **_'The Great Manipulator'_** alternately ** _–_** which means that I am going to get ideas for any one story exclusively and that plan of mine is going to fail miserably.

* * *

Hermione did, eventually, apologise to Ron over the Quidditch-Potion fiasco. That resulted in Ron acting out and being fairly pompous about it all, particularly smug with Lavender at his side. It didn't go down to well with anyone, and especially not with Hermione, who had shot a look at Harry when he had been about to upbraid Ron about stretching things too far before proceeding to topple Ron of his tower and render her apology moot. Harry would never doubt her ability to handle things like these again. Maybe he could get her to do it for him too?

It was, in retrospect, doomed to be a failed conversation right from the start. And part of it _was_ Lavender. Hermione had the tendency to be indignant on the part of people she considered close to her, and she was currently indignant on Luna's part. Luna had trusted and helped Harry, and was his friend, so she was Hermione's friend, plain and simple. The other thing was that none of them were happy with Ron's choice.

"Ron, may I have a moment of your time please?" Hermione asked. Knowing that she was about to swallow her pride and apologise, which was just as difficult a thing for her to do at times as it was for Ron, Harry gathered Crookshanks into his lap and pampered him with pats and scratches, eliciting purrs and highly happy mews from Hermione's cat.

"Of course," Ron said magnanimously as Lavender, sitting on the arm of the chair by the fire Ron occupied, played with Ron's hair. Harry and Crookshanks shared a revolted look, and not for the first time, the boy wondered whether the half-kneazle was an animagus too. When Hermione glanced at the other girl, Ron continued, "Whatever you wish to say to me, you can say around Lavender."

Something crunchy – that was what he needed as he was in for some brilliant entertainment. Ron was going to be burnt into a crisp. Best friends they might be, but this was going to be far too much fun to interfere.

"This is not going to go well is it?" Ginny asked as she and Dean settled onto the couch next to him.

"With Ron being as much a prat as he is being right now?" asked Dean rhetorically. "Sometimes Ron can be..." he started, casting around for polite words for his girlfriend's brother, but falling woefully short.

"An idiot," she completed agreeably.

"Shh! She is going to vent," Harry chid. Long practice meant that Harry had learnt to take Ron and Hermione's fights in his stride and learnt to enjoy the spectacle instead of worrying about whether or not he should intervene.

"No. A galleon says she will not shout and yet make it fun," Neville bet as he absently scratched his nose with a quill. Ginny took it.

With stupendous self-control, Hermione proceeded to win Neville the bet. "Fine, then," she shortly retorted. "I wished to apologise to you."

By this time, Neville gave up all pretence of working on whatever it was that he was working on.

"And what is it that you wanted to apologise for?" Ron asked in a tone so smug, one could make a simile out of it. It seemed to irk everyone that Lavender shared the expression.

The peanut gallery wondered whether Hermione would be making a pasty out of their poor and currently very dim-witted friend. She chose another way.

"Oh well, you know, I was worried about you. You always are such a bunch of nerves when you are expected to perform, we all saw that last year except for that one good game. And then the Slytherins always target you. Having Malfoy and Vaisey both off today made me think that things were more than just coincidence and I reprimanded you. After all, this is your special thing, one of the things you are good at and you should be proud of, and which gets you what you want." She gave Lavender a glance that nobody could dismiss as Hermione looking away for a bit. "I am your friend Ron. I wouldn't want you dependent on something you could get addicted to. After all" and here she gave Lavender a measured look, "you are prone to hasty and wrong decisions and obsessions. I apologise for assuming that was the case."

She did manage to make it all his mistake that she was angry. It befuddled Ron because he wanted to be angry and was instead feeling abashed. Hermione didn't speak another word as she walked away gracefully and with dignity.

It seemed unless Ron came back to his sense now, there was no way the two would be talking to each other again.

Personally, and he did not say it, but Harry thought that Ron was being a bit of a prick and a jackass, one that needed a consultation with a few hard fists, and also that Hermione was going into "Molly-wanting-Tonks-to-marry-Bill" mode. And he also wanted to be supportive towards and happy for his male best friend – one of two, anyway – but also thought that Luna could do much better. And while he respected Lavender for her role with the DA the previous year, he simply could not stand the sickening lovey-dovey things she pulled Ron into.

So he stayed quiet. Right there was the chief reason he felt slightly averse to the whole dating thing, other considerations like...Hermione...notwithstanding. It was way too much trouble than it was worth. At least, with her, there was no risk of this queasiness that made the Ron-Lavender couple thing resemble a train-wreck; that had to count for something. And then it was Hermione. She understood him better than anyone else, and always was there for him. She was very pretty too, and he really thought she was attractive. And she was brainy, and his best friend and she looked gorgeous when she got angry and he couldn't think of any good thing without her and she was the most important person for him and she was drawing attention and he really wanted to be selfish but it wasn't being selfish if he actually really, really liked her...

Harry grimaced. Felt slightly averse, indeed. Who was he kidding?

* * *

"The kids wrote?" Arthur asked in mild shock. He was accustomed to teenagers forgetting that they had parents and a home while they were busy with their time at school. He didn't need to elaborate the thought. He was the same, so he knew it was more than hypocritical to expect too much.

"Yes," replied Molly absently as she grinned at something that was in the letter. "Harry did."

"Harry?" Arthur asked, perplexed, as he took the letter from his wife.

"Oh yes," answered Molly serenely, as she stirred the vegetables she had set to fry. "He writes at least once a month. Remus is far too deep among the packs, and hardly can be written to, and Sirius..." she exhaled shakily as she trailed off. "He asked me whether he could write to us..."

"Ah," was all Arthur said, as in the one syllable he expressed everything he meant. He was touched. He was quite touched indeed, by the fact that Harry considered them close enough to write home to.

The letter itself was...different.

He was quite amused by the regaling of the Quidditch match, Ron's new girlfriend (and Arthur was sure that if the boys were anything like he and his cousin Matt were when they were their age, no chance when the rest could poke fun at Ron's expense would be wasted), the serious news about Katie Bell's recuperation, the new grades in Potions and how what remained of the DA was now irritating Snape, to put it mildly, with the way they performed better in class, a few funny anecdotes about pranks...

It was obvious that Harry had never really written home before, for some of the things were such that he would have kept secret, and that made it all the more precious to him.

Sometimes, it was the little things like the letter that showed that life was the greatest form of magic there was.

* * *

What the attack on Katie had proven to the six was that they were not safe. She had been under the Imperious Curse and had had no protection. And the Unforgivable Curses were deemed so because there was no protection from them, yet. Given that better and more accomplished people than he had not managed to find a solution, Harry was hardly thinking of attempting that. But there still remained the problem of people being susceptible.

Now there was no way to actually help people get over it – there was hardly going to be any volunteer who'd cast the Imperius on willing subjects and keep it quiet. And he wasn't going to do it, much apart from the fact that he didn't even know whether he could do it.

That still left the question of protection unaddressed.

His thoughts turned to the DA. The very incident that troubled him had shaken him enough to reach out to the more willing members. Susan, Justin, Ernie and Hannah (now particularly serious after her mother's death), the Patil twins, the Creevey brothers, Neville, Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Luna and even Lavender were the people he reached out to first, mostly because they were the people he was initially most comfortable with. They passed the message on to the others.

His prowess with silent spell-casting was made known by Susan already, so many of those, even from Ravenclaw approached him willingly on their part. That rounded up all those in the group that were still in school.

He had spoken to them the weekend after the attack on Katie, and the one before the Quidditch Match against the Slytherins.

* * *

Flashback/26th October, 1996

* * *

"Are we starting the DA again?" Colin had excitedly demanded.

Harry just smiled and nodded. The resultant cry of exultant glee was amusing to say the least. It also bothered him a bit that some people thought of the DA with such happiness and he had wanted to take that away. Some like Colin and Dennis wanted to learn enough to be useful. Some like Susan wanted to take the fight to Voldemort. Some wanted to be strong enough to protect their families. And the previous year had given them hope that it could be done; that they could do it. And the absence of the DA or its disbandment was capable of taking that away. An unused blade can dull all on its own.

It was just the fact that he didn't think he was capable of delivering whatever they expected of him, if anything. But their trust – enough to return almost as soon as he sent the word – humbled him.

So he had made plans. Spells were all good, as he knew, when there was hope of winning or a draw long enough to hold the attack off till help arrived. But Death Eaters attacked homes, places where people were supposed to be safe. That was their objective, of course. It was better for the victims to be unprepared. And that was the first thing he needed to help the DA with. If nothing else, they had to get away and survive with their families.

"You called, Potter?" It was Terry Boot, one of the Ravenclaws from the DA.

"I did, yes. I suppose you have questions, but please sit on them till after everyone's here."

"Fair enough," Terry agreed with a shrug.

Sure enough, once everyone had assembled, at the end of the day's lectures, Terry wasted no time getting off the blocks.

"Is this about the DA?"

"Not entirely, yet, no," Harry calmly answered. He had prepared for these questions, and every one of these people, barring the absent Marietta Edgecombe and Cho Chang had stood against Umbridge and by extension, the Ministry with him. He owed them his loyalty. "What I mean is that this is not a formal meeting. Last year, the DA was started as a means to be prepared for DADA, properly."

"And since it is Snape who **_is_** teaching, for a change, we have done away with it." It was Susan.

"Yes. And maybe we don't need the sort of meetings we had last year, or maybe we do. I am not a good judge of others' requirements, and that is not the object of the meeting either." He took a slow breath and then looked at them all carefully. "Last year, you stood with me against Umbridge and against the Ministry. She has a list that Edgecombe gave her. My intention, at this point is to ask you whether you are ready for attacks? Do you need help? Have you got escape routes and plans?" He shook his head as a few faces took on slightly pinched looks. "I don't need to know them if you do. I just want you to have them. And if you don't I am willing to help you make some."

People looked around apprehensively. Even the other five of the Ministry six were surprised. Normally, they knew what he was up to, because they were embroiled in it.

"What would you do if you knew our plans?" asked Terry Boot. Nobody wanted to show distrust, but everyone was right to be paranoid. It wasn't just Harry who'd know if they spoke it in an open group.

"Look, Terry, you really needn't tell me. Last year, you all stood by me. The least I owe you all is my loyalty, and any help I can give you personally. You can use what I have got to say, to fine-tune your plans if you wish to, without me even knowing it. And I understand why you wouldn't want anyone knowing, and I agree."

That mollified Terry, and he nodded.

"What have you got?" Ernie demanded.

"Seamus, and Susan and you asked me about the DA in the first week itself, and well, I just think it would be better to secure your positions and families before actually fighting. I studied the past Death Eater attacks, to understand how they worked. I mean, I hope and wish none of you are attacked and Voldemort and all the Death Eaters die horribly, but well..."

"We get the point, Harry," Susan gently prodded. There was definite interest now visible on the faces of those assembled.

"Yeah well, so I studied them, and there were these patterns to the attacks. It depended on whom they were attacking of course, but well, the basic elements were the same, always. When they attacked magical families, they put up the anti-apparition spells first.

"With muggle homes, they'd make sure to maximise the damage, because most muggle families live close by enough that if one home catches fire – their usual method of murder – then a couple more around usually would too. Usually since the fire is magical, there is not enough time till the fire department comes along.

"With magical homes, since they always expected the fire to be magical, the Death Eaters tried to kill everyone within personally before burning things down if they could. No survivors.

"Otherwise they would seal everyone in, locking the doors and windows with all sorts of charms before setting things on fire. That's common for both cases."

"So the objective is not assassination?" Hermione asked.

"Not always," Harry answered. "The main one is fear and intimidation. I am sorry, Susan but..."

Susan nodded solemnly and allowed him to continue.

"The point is for assassinations, there really aren't enough people who warrant that amount of attention from them. Madam Bones was the most recent one. Since those attacks are very high profile, the information is not too well known, because I suppose the Ministry wants to be seen doing something." The disgust and distrust for the Ministry seemed a living breathing thing for everyone present.

"It is considered to be an open secret, but Auntie was supposed to be the Minister."

"That would have been great," Harry said a bit awkwardly in condolence, but Susan understood his meaning.

"What else?"

"Well there is the timing. The person who gave me the information spoke of how the Dark Mark was discovered by the newspaper delivery people among the muggles, if the houses were isolated and by the milk-elves among magical communities. And the Dark Mark is known to remain visible for four to six hours. Since the deliveries are around seven, the attacks occurred from about two a.m. People are asleep and mostly defenceless.

"In cases of attacks on magical homes, if the children cast spells, they would be lost in the melee, because the underage magic detectors are not so accurate, and they could claim self-defence if they happened to kill any of the bastards. With the muggle-born, they had to contend with the fact that they would have to face the music for underage magic, as well as for "murdering" the Death Eaters," he spat disgustedly. "In fact, there were cases of discrimination based on how important the dead death eater was compared to the actual victim, or how inconvenient the victim was, if they attacked pure-bloods."

"Do you want us to kill Harry?" Luna asked sharply.

"I don't _want_ you to kill, no," he answered. "I want you, all of you, and your families to live, to survive. I am merely mentioning the idea that you may have to choose between your – and your loved ones' – lives, and those of the bastards that would harm you." He looked at the wanly. "I honestly believe that if push comes to shove, you might have to take that step. We might even practice spells to that effect, on dummies of course. I don't want you lot dying on that account. The Death Eaters have a very high hit rate. It's time we stopped that."

"We do know of people who lived Potter," Corner reasonably argued.

"Those were the lucky ones who could escape, had help, or did kill in self defence. The official statistics say that the Death Eaters killed one thousand two hundred and eighty-three people, all told, though the actual numbers must be at least about two thousand. Your families might have known some of them too, right?"

"And what about the Ministry, then?" asked Parvati. "I doubt we would get away with that."

"That is true, and we do need to find a way," agreed Anthony Goldstein. He, as a foreign national with no diplomatic immunity, found great reason to empathise with Parvati, her sister and two other house-mates. He refrained from adding that under the previous regime, it was practically State-sponsored terrorism. His homeland faced similar problems, only external. How much things had changed with the Scrimgeour-regime was still in doubt. "We need defence against terrorists. When they come attacking, we just can't roll over and die. But we won't be protected by the law to its fullest extent, we know that. They have too many sympathisers in places where they shouldn't have any, but we have to make them realise that we will not be cowed down by their self-aggrandising."

"We could," Rionach O'Neal, the quietest Gryffindor known to them all, and one of the fastest learners of the group the previous who still managed to keep a low profile, spoke up, causing her to become the cynosure of attention, "aim at joints. Shoulders, hip joints, knee caps, elbows... all these can be shattered, and people still live, but are unable to think due to the pain. That gives us long enough to stun them. Some smaller, localised version of the blasting spell should work. It is enough of a deterrent, yet not necessarily fatal."

She blushed, a full Gryffindor red as many gave her appreciative glances and nods.

As they had deviated a bit too much from the original topic, Harry spoke up again after being content to listen to the discussion. "These are all very important things. And at this moment at least, Rionach's idea is the best we have," he said with an appreciative smile at the girl that had Ginny's classmate blushing again. "But, we will then have to be extremely cautious and restrained, we can't be the aggressors. Maybe we should find and practice such a spell in an actual meeting, along with accuracy and speed. That wasn't important for us last year. I myself am going to search for the spell, but I suppose many hands will make light work."

There were murmurs of agreement in response to that.

"So getting back to the escape plans. I suppose this might get long winded, and..."

"We are listening, aren't we Potter? If it was getting long-winded, we'd tell you. Just get on with it and tell us what you have been doing!" Zacharias Smith snapped, shocking everyone. He had always had a problem with Harry, and this outburst was only the latest one in a series of many.

"I don't see _you_ doing anything, Smith," Ginny retorted testily, as always the one with the most volatile and easily triggered temper, compared to even Ron.

"Well, what has he done? He is the Chosen One, isn't he?" Smith scoffed.

Ron turned slightly green as he remembered his early years when he had felt jealous of Harry's other monikers, and how it felt like a punch to the gut when the full implications of it all had dawned upon him. Had he been just as bad as this tosser? Then he paled a bit as he realised it was worse coming from him. He was supposed to be Harry's best friend.

As it was he burst out in his friend's defence. "He didn't choose for the papers to call him the 'Chosen One' or anything, you bloody wanker!"

His outburst coincided with Hermione's. "Last year, you didn't believe Harry when said Vo-Voldemort was back!" Her use of the name brought stillness to the seething room. "Now you accuse him of not doing enough! What's it that you want, Smith?"

"Well, he claims to have fought You-Know-Who last year, doesn't he? Why didn't he kill him then? We wouldn't need all this DA and shite if he did, would we?" Smith retorted.

"You idiot!" scolded Susan, her voice dangerously low. "You want a classmate – someone who's our age – to go fight against the Darkest Wizard of the past few centuries? What sort of a person are you?"

"Indeed, Zacharias," Ernie interjected, pompously as always, but earnestly, "the DA was all about working hard, learning, and being loyal to what was right; not just about our OWLs. Those are Hufflepuff things to do. Now that we are addressing something important, now that we are finding information that even though it may be known to some, was not known and therefore not factored in, why is there dissent on your part? Who are you loyal to then? What are you doing, as a Hufflepuff?"

Zacharias just grumbled and sat glowering at the rest of those assembled, many of whom were looking at him with disgust.

Once again having to wrest control, as the teething problems of the restarted DA resurfaced, Harry flatly interjected, "Smith, I agree that I shouldn't be the Chosen One. If you want to take a shot at Voldemort, I shall happily stand out of your path and support you as you may need. Rest assured, irrespective of whether or not you need me to help, I shall; I won't leave anyone to fight alone. But moving on, we have something else to discuss, and we are deviating from that."

It was a pivotal point. Harry hadn't dismissed Smith, but promised his support. At the same time, he was asserting his place as the one deciding the topic.

"The most distinctive thing that happened was that the Death Eaters always cut escape routes – **_ALWAYS_**." Everyone could feel the stress on that last word. "The anti-apparition spells that I mentioned before and anti-portkey spells were standard. They would surround the house from all sides, and set it on fire, but not seal it when they wanted to have fun – smoking the rodents out, apparently. But most importantly, for magical houses, **_the Floo was shut down_**."

"Floo Networks have to be maintained, Potter," Hannah pointed out. Her mother worked in the department till her death.

"True, they have to be. But, tell me, if there are going to be any maintenance or repair jobs to be done, would those people, whose Floo connections would be affected, not be notified? That's the standard practice in the muggle world, anyway, so maybe that might not hold true here, but it's logically to be expected, isn't it?"

"My mother was in charge of the same for the day shifts," she stated crossly. "She was the Notification and Customer Relations In-Charge."

"And did she have any control over what happened at night?" Harry pointedly asked, as she led him neatly to say what he wanted to.

"No..." she replied with a frown.

"And the Floo network can be used to go from anywhere to anywhere, right? So there is no actual connection till people call out the name of the place they want to go to?"

"Yes."

"So they could close one fireplace if they so wished?"

And then it dawned upon the girl. "Someone in the Floo department, the maintenance contractors or the maintenance inspector, or the night in-charge for Notifications and Customer Relations, worked with the Death Eaters."

"And given that unlike in muggle bureaucracy, the Ministry doesn't tend to shift people around much laterally," Hermione conjectured, "that person is still in place."

"And it is likely," Hannah continued in a broken voice, "that they wanted my mother to help and she refused, and was therefore targeted when she mysteriously just happened to be ill one fine day and returned home early."

"Or," Susan corrected, "she was a muggle-born is a higher position within the department – not just an underling, but in a position of at least minor authority."

"Which probably implicates her replacement as well," completed Harry. "Just as it implicates those in the department that controls the Underage Magic sensors and detectors, for they are the only ones with access to the home addresses of muggle-born homes."

It brought about a very stifling silence as people realised, once again, how much the Death Eaters, their sympathisers or those that they in some manner controlled – including their unwilling helpers – were entrenched in the system.

"The problem is," Justin, completely silent till then, shakily spoke, "that we can't actually accuse anyone of helping Death Eaters without solid, incontrovertible proof. Now I understand why we need an escape plan – a better one than any we might have at any rate. No matter who the Minister is, we have to consider the entire Ministry itself compromised."

"Our father works in the Ministry," Ron tersely bit out.

"I am not generalising people Weasley. I am talking about the institution. Your father may be actually helping fight You-Know-Who for all I know, and I don't know him. But he isn't the only one is he? People like Umbridge work for the Ministry too. She is someone who will kill puppies and eat them."

Ron nodded unhappily, though he didn't quite understand the 'puppies' reference.

"That is all well and good. But what do we do if the worst does happen?" asked Dean.

"Rionach's solution is for individual Death Eaters, and we should surely practice that. I hadn't even thought of that, actually. I was a bit stuck on the 'killing part'," Harry sheepishly admitted. "Perhaps we could plan for further meetings?"

Many agreed to that.

"What I was thinking of is potions. They don't count as magic cast by wands, so if we could, you know, make some highly destructive potions, which don't catch fire..."

"Splash damage," completed Justin. "Like bombs; we drop the potion containers on the attackers and maybe it spreads a gas? No, gases will rise and hurt non-attackers – too much collateral damage. Actual corrosive things that eat through clothes and cause damage to the skin, like heavy blisters, burns and wounds?" he hypothesised.

"Yeah, that was what I thought."

"We could make those and take them home, you know, that would save time as well."

"Most potions decay fast," objected Padma. "We will have to look into ways to keep them in active condition – like long-lasting stasis charms."

"But theoretically, that's a good idea. We could get them by the numbers, and even the muggle parents of muggle-born, or people like my mum can do that." Anthony, like Michael and Terry, was a half-blood too.

"They will wise up and disillusion themselves," Harry cautioned, arguing against his own idea. Now he was just instigating further exchange of ideas.

"So we need the classic cartoon stuff," Justin excitedly replied. "You know, in "Tom and Jerry" there's always flour around for Jerry to drop on Tom after he uses the Vanishing Cream or something like that."

Harry, Dean, Seamus, Hermione, the Creevey brothers, the three male Ravenclaws, Hannah, and Justin grinned at each other at that, and even more when they saw their companions' perplexed looks. There was a lot to be said for non-magical ingenuity.

Ron then proved he was Arthur Weasley's son by asking the most important question. "Muggles have vanishing cream?"

The grins became a full-blown gale of laughter, till it fell to Justin to explain about cartoons. It lightened the mood, a bit.

"Well, it's a pity that it doesn't actually exist, isn't it? If it did, and it worked for both magicals and muggles, they could use it and sneak past the Death Eaters."

That was classic Ron – able to come up with a gem like that, most unexpectedly.

"That is actually a nice idea," Hermione praised, though she seemed slightly discombobulated by that. Then again, she was so used to telling Ron what was right that accepting that he had a good idea seemed a bit difficult.

Ron preened.

"It seems that the expected outcome of our DA meeting – reminding everyone of known but probably ignored elements of Death Eater attacks – have been exceeded," Ernie said in summation. "Thanks for thinking of this Harry. And if you want some help with scheduling further meetings or such, just call us. We want to help."

Harry only nodded amiably in acquiescence.

"In the meantime, I will start searching for the spells and potions," Hermione offered.

"I'll help," Luna, Justin and Padma offered almost simultaneously. The strangely assertive Rionach was only a few moments late.

Hermione beamed at them.

"We will try to get information from the Ministry," Susan and Hannah volunteered.

"And I will try to find easy to manage plants with defensive uses," mused Neville. Nobody doubted that he could and therefore would.

"And I will get my folks to try to find a staging area," Ernie declared. "Having an escape plan is great. Having at least one more place to escape to is even better."

Irrefutable logic that it was, it was quickly accepted.

"And all of us shall help where needed," promised Harry on behalf of the rest.

And so it was that the DA stood up to defend itself against all comers.

* * *

End Flashback

* * *

Ever since then, the DA had been hard at work. Membership had been silently expanded to include the years down to the third. Those of the first order who were not otherwise busy, taught the new entrants in the same order that they were helped the year before, except for the Patronus Charm. That was solely the responsibility of Harry, who otherwise also helped the first group with the silent spell-casting and the new spells, while participating in bringing the new ones up to speed.

The group mainly relied on other pure-bloods like Ernie, Neville, Susan and Ron to screen new pure-blood entrants, as most of the others knew nothing about the other pure-blood families. It was not efficient and relied upon the existing members' prejudice a bit, but it was what they had, which was still better than nothing. Discretion alone could not be relied upon, and any less precaution would mean Mad-Eye would have their heads if he knew.

Given how his lessons with Dumbledore were infrequent and irregular, he had plenty of time to devote to these things, along with everything that Bill, Fleur and Hermione set him, even with the NEWT-level work. It felt good to be driven.

The fastest result of the things being researched was actually about the joint-breaking. It was a unsurprising, given that there existed the Bone-Breaker, a spell that did precisely what it was named as. It took the elder members a whole week to get it down pat, and silently as well, as they practised first on a skeleton that'd be found in any biology lab, and then progressed with increasingly thicker protections of muscle-like stuff around the skeleton.

The potions though proved difficult, and were yet not found even two weeks later. Hermione had suggested using toilet cleaners, but eyebrows would be raised if several bottles of the stuff were purchased. Granted that they had been at it for barely two weeks, but time was of essence, and if asking meant lessening the research load and facilitating action, then that was a necessary thing. As it was, the matter meant that Harry had to finally sacrifice himself for the...greater good.

* * *

"Are you really going to ask him?" Hermione whispered incredulously, surreptitiously mouthing "Later!" to Ernie as he left, as Harry hung back after the last Potions class of the week, in the third week of November.

"Obviously not directly," Harry retorted, a bit crossly. "I am not stupid!"

"Of course not!" she snapped back. "But he is...he is creepy!"

"Yes, I know. But assuming we need a month like the Polyjuice to brew that thing, we need to know now, so that we can start brewing. I am going to ask vaguely, of course."

She turned on Ron and Neville. The latter quailed a bit under her glare. "Aren't you going to say anything?"

"Sure," Ron blithely said. "Better you than me, mate."

"Thanks for the overwhelming support, Ron," Harry drily quipped.

"I do what I can," Ron rejoined with a shrug.

"Ugh!" screamed Hermione in the most subdued manner she could muster. "We just need a little time, Harry!"

"We know," pacified Neville. "He is buying you time to brew."

Hermione shook her head in dismay as she dropped the lost cause.

Once the class was empty, Harry assumed a rather persuasive demeanour as he approached Horace Slughorn. "Um...excuse me Professor, may I have a bit of your time?"

"Yes?" asked Slughorn as he turned around exaggeratedly, and then beamed excessively exuberantly. "Ah, Harry, yes, yes of course! What is it?" he asked, his voice oozing with patronising kindness.

"I just have a few questions sir, you know, well, given the war and everything."

Slughorn's face closed off dramatically.

"It's about the practical usage of potions in warfare sir."

Like a pendulum, Slughorn's face shifted to inviting openness.

"You won't tell anyone that I asked this would you, sir?" Hermione butted in. It was best not to take chances, and she was not going to leave Harry alone to face the man. "I mean, you are the only approachable authority upon the subject, sir, and well it would be terrible if Death Eaters actually came to know of it."

"Of course, of course," the man promised affably, though his gaze became even sharper. The two acted a bit relaxed.

"In the muggle world, sir, there is something called a Chemical Attack," Harry continued innocently, as if he hadn't noticed the rather dramatic changes in expression. "And while I know that the Death Eaters may frown upon the muggles, they will use those methods to kill as many as they can." Harry's definition of "vague" was obviously incorrect. If at all he was just lying about his motives.

"Yes. It's ever so terrible how mankind can think of ways to harm."

"Exactly sir!" agreed Harry with wide-eyed earnestness. "And well, as you said, and as did some friends of my parents, Dad was an Auror and Mum was close to a potions and charms prodigy, wasn't she?"

"Lily was, indeed one of my favourites," Slughorn said in fond reminiscence, and it wasn't feigned – at least not discernibly. "I was...she...her death was one the main reasons why I resigned, Harry, you must know that," he said very seriously, almost beseechingly.

Harry's wide-eyed shock wasn't feigned either. And he had worried about the man being a bit too obsequious towards the Malfoys of the world.

"Yes. I can see why that surprises you. Most other professors have fond memories of her after all. It...well...it's best a subject left alone, but just know that Lily's death hurt me deeply, more than I can say."

Not knowing what to say, Harry just solemnly thanked him.

"And I do see a lot of the same in you, Harry, a lot of Lily. But I find the similarities between you and her even more frightening, Miss Granger, if I am to be honest. Both of you, you represent complementary parts of her, and there's nothing better I could say to you."

"Thank you sir," the two chimed again.

Slughorn sat down heavily, releasing the stress off some creaking joints. "So, you were saying?"

"Yes, the chemical attacks, sir. I was thinking of getting into either healing or law-enforcement, sir, and I was wondering whether you'd direct me to some references. We wanted to research some cures sir, if we could."

"Quite noble, as James would have thought, though admittedly, he was not a great Potioneer," Slughorn praised with a weak chuckle. He looked upon them with what was supposed to be a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. "I shall agree upon one condition."

"Sir?"

"You see, you have evaded my little get-togethers quite skilfully thus far, Harry. I shall give you the references and hints if you agree to come to my Christmas party."

Having expected something like this, Harry summoned his best sheepish manner, "I never meant to offend you, sir. It is just that Professor Dumbledore has been taking a keener interest in my preparations."

"Training you for his place is he?"

"Those, or yours, are all too large shoes for me to fill sir."

"As always you have an answer," Slughorn merrily chuckling said. "Just like Lily; she was a cheeky one!" He shook his head fondly. "But I see that you haven't agreed yet," he reminded with a little smirk.

"I can hardly decline this invitation, can I sir? I would be very honoured!"

"And you, Ms. Granger?" he demanded.

So this was what Hermione was speaking about. Well, he didn't want to pander to Slughorn much, but Padfoot would have been pleased if he used this moment to do something a bit...different. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, after all. He was a Gryffindor. At least he'd act like one.

"If I may be so forward, sir, may I invite Hermione as my guest sir?"

"Oh ho ho ho!" guffawed Slughorn. "Is that so now?" Harry acted as if he were blushing. Hermione actually was. "Of course you may, Harry. Who am I to say no?"

"Thank you, sir."

Slughorn guffawed again before dismissing them. "Ask me again tomorrow, after your classes are done. I shall be sure to collect my references to quite a few potions that may cause such damage."

"Thank you sir." Then Harry shuffled a bit and asked with tremendous concern, "Sir, I don't break any confidences when I say that you didn't feel safe outside Hogwarts. You won't tell anyone would you? If the wrong ears here this then it might be traced back to you."

"Rest assured Harry, I shall not tell anyone about this. You have my sacred word."

It wasn't enough actually, but at least it was something. As politely as they could, they made themselves scarce.

* * *

Hermione patiently waited only till they reached the corridor before descending upon Harry with her tightly bound scrolls.

"You stupid, moronic, idiotic prat, Harry Potter!" she scolded, as Neville and Ron tried not to chortle at that. "What possessed you to...?"

"I intended to keep a weather eye on this party thing," Harry seriously said. "I am not going to a party. I want to also see what sort of company he seeks. By inviting you as my date, it frees up a slot for someone else. I want someone from the DA to accept it. If we can get a few more of us in, we'll have more observers."

"Oh." This caused Hermione to be angry again. She was his date, and she hadn't realised immediately, and he was now saying that it was all strategic. But she couldn't protest because it would be hypocritical after scolding him.

"So we are going to see if there are other DA invitees, and get them to go with DA members."

Ron and Neville agreed with understanding nods as they walked ahead. Harry bent to do up his shoelaces.

As expected, Hermione hung back out of habit, loitering between the two boys ahead and Harry who brought up the rear. Harry straightened up and stole upon her from behind, before he gently whispered in her ear, "And it also got me to ask you out before either of us could chicken out."

That stopped her in her tracks with a stunned expression. He gave her a fleeting smirk and scampered off before her brain could reboot.

* * *

Ok, I am sure this will irritate quite a few people, but I read the sixth book again before coming around to writing this chapter, and remembered why I stopped reading Harry Potter books and started reading fanfics instead. My age positions me uniquely among the writers on this account to understand hormones currently, but unless Hermione's hormones were active for Malfoy of all people (that's absolutely **_SICK_** , just like Snape/Lily (or SNILY as they call it); I can't stress that enough – in the spirit of Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezees, let's even make a slogan: **_SNILY is SILLY_** ), nothing explains her outright refusal to believe that Malfoy is a Death Eater, not even the botched relationship being built with Ron. Let's just sample this shall we? In spite of her jealousies and what-nots, Hermione, the book-lover, calls a **_book_** of working potions and corrections "stupid".Inference: the Hermione in Book 6 wasn't Hermione at all.

Slow claps.


	6. Identity - I

**Identity – I**

Thanks to all readers, followers, favouriteers, and the reviewers: buterflypuss, ArtimuousJackson, katmom, Nanchih, texrider, ObsessedWithHPFanFic, alix33, surviversp, Guest, Cheryl (guest), Arkhen, lukejca, bridgetlynn, CoolFanfictionLover, and Romulus Lupin. At the time of posting, this story has crossed 11000 hits (11189, to be exact). I am humbled by the response. Thank you all.

 ***** I had a small Gary Stu moment with Harry, Ron and Ginny. Sorry. You'll recognise it when you come to it.

* * *

Mistletoe, Harry decided, was something he was definitely allergic to. Bunches of the accursed thing had sprung up overnight. Well, not really; everyone knew that the castle would be decorated for Christmas and Hagrid had been given help with the twelve Christmas (he carried in eight and the students levitated in four), and holly and tinsel had been draped over the banisters. But none of those things had the nuisance value that one measly, innocuous-looking sprig of mistletoe commanded.

And it wasn't as if it was a new problem. It was just that the problem had changed in its scope. At the time of the Yule Ball conducted two years previously, there were groups of girls that blocked access to Cho, whom he hoped to ask to accompany him to the Ball. Now there were girls that gave him flirtatious winks (and some were outrageous in making their attention known) and if not for the fact that Hermione knew they were being avoided with not a little amount of fear, or being ignored if they were benign enough in their attentions, he would have been cut off from her.

After all, Hermione was a bit possessive; it was an attractive trait normally, but it also meant that he had to be exceedingly careful in his interaction with other girls while they were still not...well...officially together. And he was scared to do that, considering that he had tricked her into being his date, and though she didn't seem averse to that by any means, it was best to let her digest this new situation and accept and analyse and dissect it to her heart's content before moving another step forward.

But even that precarious position, which seemed to an impersonal observer to be similar to very high-level diplomacy which if successful would stave off war, was infinitely better than Ron and Lavender's amorous displays.

"Have you ever entertained the thought that Ron is distinctly uncomfortable doing this?" unable to take his eyes off the couple christening yet another sprig of mistletoe.

"He likes attention Harry," Hermione idly commented.

"He looks more like a very small prey animal being toyed with and desperate to escape," Harry pointed out with much sympathy.

Hermione gave the scene a cursory glance. "Do you intend to go save him?"

"I need proper company," Harry replied easily.

"I see many ready."

Harry shuddered demonstrably. "Don't even joke about that." He then stupidly added, "Why don't you come along and help me?"

Then he caught himself as he realised what he had said could be construed as (though he only meant it as a shield from the throng of girls that would mysteriously appear if he went near the mistletoe), then decided he really would rather like being in that position with Hermione, and then tried to play it off coolly. He failed miserably.

From the corner of his eye, he could see Hermione attempting to ignore his very presence, though her face, hidden in the book, resembled a fire engine. He hoped she was blushing and not angry.

"Mistletoe has Nargles, you know," he commented hastily. "Luna told me. She was trying to get Peeves to clean all the sprigs. I wouldn't want to catch them."

Hermione started shaking a bit, which perplexed Harry for a split second, before she burst out into laughter. He tried not to be hurt. Was what he said so hilariously stupid? Bloody hell! Whatever did give him the idea to say that?

"Oh Harry!" she cried, wiping a tear of mirth before continuing, "You are really very adorable sometimes."

His indignant squawk of protest at being called adorable was cut off when she kissed him on the cheek. It took all his not inconsiderable strength of will to not blush and bluster, and to maintain a dignified smile, instead of dancing the jig he was internally.

It was just the latest of exchanges between the two. Hermione had not chosen to comment adversely at all on being tricked into being his date as he had pretty much admitted, but hadn't made anything clear on whether she was amenable either. Why the bloody hell couldn't witches be like switches? Either a 'yes' or 'no', spoken directly would put him out of his misery, but she was drawing it out, treating him like prey herself.

Girls, Harry decided were scary. It was best to never, ever, ever assume, even if it was possible that the assumption was right, or even though the wait was a bit excruciating. And he would never admit he thought it, but Voldemort was easier to deal with than this.

* * *

One thing that did however piss him off was the reason why Hermione was pissed off in the lead up to Christmas. She turned up for lunch late, fuming and about to erupt in a violent tirade at some poor idiot who had earnt her ire.

Since they had a class immediately after lunch, Harry, beside whom she now customarily sat, had taken the liberty of serving her a plate of what she usually ate and covering it with another. As it was, that was what calmed the incensed young lady enough to be coherent.

"I will show that little jumped up witch just where to shove..."

The glower at the gaggle of girls giggling and pointing at Harry in what they believed to be a subtle manner explained the "who".

"What did Vane and her friends do, Hermione?" Ginny asked.

"How'd you know it was them?"

"Pigwidgeon could tell that they have done something to get you so angry, and the owl is an absolute idiot," the redhead drily pointed out.

"They want to corner Harry with Love Potions," Hermione bit out as she savaged her bread roll, probably imagining Romilda Vane in its place. "How dare...?"

"Um...just a small thing, but what exactly did she say? Did she actually mention love potions?"

"Do I look like an idiot?" she turned upon him. "Or is it that you want to give her the _benefit of doubt_?" she sarcastically demanded.

"No," replied Harry calmly. "If we can prove that there is love potion in anything she gives me, then I might have a way to stop that stupidity immediately, and completely."

That pricked the balloon of Hermione's anger. "Oh."

"What did she say?" Ginny prompted, now risking talking to Hermione again.

"She explained her plan in great detail, regarding how she had this batch of chocolates that she'd give you, with a mild compulsion charm on the box to make you eat them."

Harry actually smiled at that. It would've looked perfectly in place on Fred or George's face and Remus certainly would have recognised it from his schooldays. Then he sighed and his expression melted into a long-suffering one. If only there wasn't a war, and every bit of information wasn't sensitive, it would have been a bit fun, dealing with Vane and her antics. That plan had to be dropped. He could still fantasise about implementing it, however.

"Does she now?"

"What?"

"Is there a way to detect these potions?"

"The same spell that Slughorn taught us to detect poisons," Hermione promptly replied. "I checked it as soon as I found out they were trying that."

"Good, so if I cast it on a chocolate, it shall most likely show up the results?"

"Yes. She can't brew, it would be difficult to get the really advanced ones past any dark detectors, and the low quality and intensity brews like the ones Fred and George have..."

"Used to have," corrected Harry. "I had something to hold over their heads to get them to comply."

"Used to have," Hermione continued, before taking a bite, chewing and swallowing. "They are the ones that can be detected."

Harry smiled and attempted pacification. "You don't worry about it then. I accept that I am not as clever or anything as you are, but we were all taught not to accept things from strangers. Well, Dudley was, anyway; the Dursleys would have been happy if some stranger had taken me away," he added with a shrug, as an afterthought.

Hermione's eyes narrowed.

"So, anyway, what applies to older strangers applies to younger strangers as well. And Mad-Eye would have my head if I was so easy to dupe. Amorous little girls with less sense than was given to a Flobberworm are easy to handle if they work on their own. I was merely wondering whether she was being handled by someone else."

That certainly mollified Hermione who'd not thought of Vane being someone's stooge, willingly or otherwise.

All of a sudden Harry started sniggering.

"What?" Hermione demanded with the look of a person humouring someone that was coupled with a raised eyebrow.

"I was just wondering what would happen if I could act like I had fallen prey to her tactics. You know?" He put on a loud whisper and flouncing, pompous voice as he spoke, "Romilda, my love, together you and I shall raise powerful children, worse than the Darkest Dark Wizard in some centuries, Tom Riddle. We shall create the beings that will become the worst mass-murderers in magical history after Tom Riddle!"

Neville, who'd just had a long sip from his goblet choked and sprayed the liquid all out. Harry dodged just in time. _Thank you, Bludgers_ he thought.

Hermione and Ginny burst out laughing, while Ron seemed perturbed at not being part of the fun from where he was being fed morsels of food by his herder. It was mean to think of them that way, but they managed to clear out rooms fast with the way they made everyone uncomfortable. Brandishing his wand at the mess, Neville cleaned it up with a silent cleaning charm before threatening Harry with it. "You!" he scolded. "No talking at the table when anyone's eating, henceforth!"

Hermione was still laughing at the dark humour. It was the thing about Harry. He could easily diffuse her anger and make her laugh when she couldn't even think straight. That he could take people like Vane in his stride, dismiss them as minor irritants and still joke about it was to his credit in her opinion. That it balanced her out was even better.

And she liked it all.

But then all too soon she was reminded that they were in times of war, one that they had no choice but to fight – one that **_he_** had no choice but fight. Every little thought these days turned towards the topic of the war.

"Say, if they can get the Love Potion stuff in, the Dark Detectors don't actually work too well, do they?" wondered Neville.

"Potions are actually a grey area where Dark Detection is concerned," Harry explained. This was an extension of DADA, and therefore, Harry did have something meaningful to say. "Every potion, or so the Prince's book says, could in theory be a medicine for some ailment. He says that something considered dark as say, a Draught of Living Death could be used for something good. Anaesthesia, apparently, is one of those things."

"That's interesting," muttered Hermione, having never thought of it that way before.

"At the same time, a pain-relieving potion could be used to cause tremendous harm. Overdosing on it kills, if given to a person before cutting a formal artery..." he continued.

"The femoral artery," she automatically corrected.

"Yes, that, if that is cut, it can be a silent murder. The Prince has a very disturbing way to look at things."

"So potions are on the very edge of dark material?" asked Dean in confirmation. "That makes any form of security susceptible to potions right?"

"Sort of," Harry answered doubtfully. "But the potions are not passing through any Dark Detectors anyway. Everyone was required to declare potions in their possession and some were then disallowed. And owls aren't being screened, so far as we know. Come to think of it, that must be how Malfoy must have got the necklace into the castle and hidden it."

"I don't think Malfoy ever had the necklace inside the castle," Hermione rebutted. "He may be the only one we know to _probably_ be a Death Eater, but there could be others. And you said **_he_** punished them viciously, and rewarded some, so I doubt they are all friends," she reasoned.

"Makes sense," Ginny said with a nod, as she got the more complete picture.

"If the dorms in Slytherin are anything like ours, I doubt secrecy is high. People like the rest of the Inquisitorial Squad could get Malfoy arrested if they sold him out, and put themselves in his place," hypothesised Dean.

Ginny just had one quibble, though. "Wouldn't that earn Tom's wrath if they sabotaged someone else's mission or something?"

"It wouldn't if they pretended just well enough to help as or how Malfoy would need, Ginny," Neville argued in Dean's support. "He may be silent, but that doesn't mean Malfoy has stopped being an arrogant idiot who expects instant compliance. And they would give him that while setting him up to fail."

Dean was, as usual building upon things after hearing everyone else out. It had helped him integrate into their little group and fast enough. And then there was the fact that what he spoke often made a lot of sense.

"I didn't think of that," Harry muttered before his brow furrowed as something else flickered into existence on the edge of his thoughts. "So that means that he has someone helping him in the village, because I doubt the necklace was his only plan, and he must need someone to keep an eye out for something out of the ordinary, enough for him to change his plans if need be, as well as to gain confidence of any target he might have. And only someone who lives in the village would know what's out of the normal for Hogsmeade, as well as a sure way to get into a student's confidence all the while seeming to be harmless."

"It is likely."

It was a good thing that they were learning to talk matters over and think things through before assuming, especially on such matters. After all, a wrong assumption would and could lead to wrong actions which could cause harm.

As Harry attacked his lunch again lost in thought though, Neville, Ginny and Hermione shared a troubled look, one that Dean missed. They really needed to stop it from becoming an obsession for him. Mad-Eye Moody was an agreeable role model for people who stood firmly for the Light while skirting the very edges of sane and acceptable human behaviour. People like him were needed. That didn't mean that Harry needed to become one of them.

The world may have a want of the Harry Potter who was focussed on the war.

They needed their best friend, however, and that was non-negotiable.

* * *

"Hey Harry?" Ron asked, a bit forced in his manner, later that evening.

"Yeah Ron?" asked Harry, setting aside his quill. This was the same voice he had used when they'd had a fight when the Goblet chose his name.

"Have you got a bit of time for me?"

"Ron?" asked Harry, flummoxed.

"Well, you know, you rarely speak to me these days and well..." he stopped as Harry started laughing in a wildly sarcastic, exaggerated manner.

"Are you done?"

"Am I done? I rarely speak to you? Bugger off, mate. Honestly, what have you been drinking?" His voice was a bit raised; enough to draw attention from those around and also those seated a bit far.

Irritated because his accusation had not only been dismissed, but turned back on him, Ron's temper started to peak. Most fortunately, a third party intervened, making it a bit of a family matter.

"What are you kids fighting about?" Ginny demanded

"Git-boy thinks **_I_** don't talk to him anymore," Harry complained.

"None of you do!" Ron burst out.

Ginny raised an eyebrow and scowled at her brother. She then turned to Harry. "You write to mum, right?"

Harry opened his mouth to speak, but closed it, unsure what to say.

"I read over your shoulder," Ginny explained, without the slightest hint of abashment. "When you next do, just tell her that Ron needs a brain-cleaner. I'd have, but she's heard that one time too many from me."

"Well you all have your own little group where you," he pointed at his best mate, "Neville, Hermione, you," he again jabbed a finger viciously, at his sister this time, "your boyfriend and sometimes Luna have. You share jokes and everything and stuff. That used to be me!"

While he was deciding whether to punch the git, or pull a Hermione and storm off, Ginny actually did punch her brother.

"It is not us, Ronald, who glue ourselves to the lips of Lavender Brown at every moment. It is not us who follow her like a loyal dog that she deigns to kiss."

"You have a problem with my girlfriend?" spat Ron.

"No, we have a problem with the fact that you need to, but haven't grown a pair of balls and told her that you are not an attachment, but a person on your own. She can abandon Parvati, but the fact remains that **_we_** want you around. Some things can't be spoken to her, nor can we allow you to reveal those to her."

"And why would I? Don't you trust me? Is that why you don't talk to me anymore?"

"Much apart from the fact that you're behaving like a girl," Harry deftly dodged Ginny's stinging spell, "all that whining about not talking and everything. Well, alright then; do you want to know why we have a problem with you and your girlfriend?"

"Yeah, do tell."

"You kiss everywhere. We try to talk and you are kissing and we don't know whether to interrupt you or come back later, but that bloody 'later' never comes. And well, sometimes, you kiss so...well..."

"Vigorously," supplied Ginny.

"Yes, vigorously, that it makes us puke."

"We are not that bad," protested Ron, a bit weakly.

"You tell me that when you stop looking terrified of her kissing you, mate." Harry shook his head. "Tell you what, you grow a pair, tell her that you need time with us too and that you aren't her pet. Decide whether you are her plaything or Ronald Weasley. Last I knew, even if we can digest a bit of subdued public display of affection, it becomes scary if it starts looking like you might be forcibly shagged in a few moments."

 _That_ shocked Ron, certainly. Harry left before he made another acidic comment.

At least it bore fruit. The couple seemed to have two tense days, before they toned down with the relationship display.

The children of the people in the group would have another parallel, eventually – obsessive social media posts.

* * *

The Party itself was one of the weirdest things Harry had ever attended, and given that he had attended Nearly-Headless Nick's Deathday gathering, that was saying something.

The fairy-lit golden lamp hung from the centre of the ceiling, together with the garish mix of Slytherin and Gryffindor colours of the drapery, gave the clearly magically expanded office of the Hogwarts Potion Master a distinctly seedy tent-pub-like look.

Still, it was the last thing on his mind. Hermione had once again done her hair up like she had two years ago for the Yule Ball. Only her dress was a bit more...eye-catching. It took a very great effort for Harry to not ogle her, and not let the fact that Hermione was certainly a beautiful young _woman_ now, make him say or behave like a stupid person.

 _Sorry, Voldemort, but Hermione's going to kill me. Fight someone else, mate,_ were Harry's fleeting thoughts, pinned as he was by the coy smile, and transfixed as he was by her beauty. Of course, he was not operating at a high enough cognitive level to think in those terms, but the situation was the same. If he made through the night with his sanity and friendship with her intact, his dreams were certainly going to b of the risqué kind.

She certainly had noticed and acknowledged Harry's attention, and that it was not fixed on her face alone, but she let him off the hook. He seemed to go as red as her dress and her lips. That he still looked handsome enough in his dress robes was not lost on her.

Thankfully, the DA turnout was fair; otherwise it would have been terribly awkward for Harry who had never actually met a large group of people like this. Slughorn had, in fact, invited the entire group of six who'd invaded the Ministry. How that kept him under the radar was anyone's guess, but they weren't going to look at the gift horse in the mouth. Deeming each other safe and certainly good enough friends that neither would make fun of the other, Neville and Luna had accompanied each other; much to Ron's perplexed scrutiny.

Ernie McMillan was invited as the heir to the family with the largest land holdings in the entire magical world. They owned a fair chunk of both the Diagon and Knockturn Alleys, beside the family construction business. He accompanied Susan Bones.

Anthony Goldstein, who by relation was a distant cousin of Newt Scamander's wife, but in reality, was very close to the Scamanders (as the Goldsteins had all taken severe efforts to keep all living members of the family together, having faced genocide through both Grindelwald and Hitler) had been invited as well. He was accompanied by Rionach O'Neal. Together with Dean and Lavender, that rounded the numbers up to an even dozen.

It was the Hufflepuffs in their group that Harry and Hermione first ran into. Both were giving him pitying looks.

"What?"

"Slughorn's gone and invited Eldred Worple," Ernie told him with great sympathy.

"Who is he?"

"Imagine Lockhart crossed with Rita Skeeter," Susan explained, causing the other three to wince.

"Thanks for the heads-up," Harry uncomfortably replied.

The two nodded and left. Hermione was about to break out into a fit of silent laughter.

"Do you find this funny?"

"I am trying not to," she replied, not trying too hard to control her grin. The next moment it dropped as a little elf – one that seemed younger than what a normal adult elf, if there were such things – knocked into her, carrying a platter of finger-foods. It splattered on Hermione's dress.

While neither were authorities on house-elf behaviour, both knew that none of the other elves would have made such a mistake, and instead would have popped off with the food while it was falling. For another, the little elf looked at Hermione in horror and then its eyes filled with tears.

"Pitsy be sorry, miss!" it sobbed. "Please don't be complaining about Pitsy! Pitsy not be doing so again!"

The elf was clearly a child. And now it was worse. For a culture bred for slavery, apparently, there was no concept of child labour being wrong either. These parties were pushing the Hogwarts kitchens to their limits, and undoubtedly, the younger elves were being pushed into service as well. Aunt Petunia was not alone, it seemed. It wasn't a nice thing to be reminded of, and worse still, the elf feared he would behave like Vernon and Hermione like Petunia.

Patting the elf gentle on his back (Pitsy flinched) because it was crying, "It is okay, Pitsy, nobody is going to complain about you to anyone." He pointed his wand at Hermione's dress, and with a simple cleaning charm, the dress was as good as new. "See? There's no harm done at all."

"Young Master is not being complaining about Pitsy?"

"No," Hermione firmly promised, as she too crouched next to the little elf. "Harry won't. I won't either."

"Pitsy is being thanking you." Pitsy sniffled and then smiled tremulously. "Pitsy be very clumsy, is not liking crowds."

"That's okay. You can stay away, can't you?"

"Pitsy can't," he wailed woefully.

"Well can't you exchange your job with the elf near the drinks stand? You won't have to move around among the people then."

Hermione was awarded with a wide smile at that.

"Pitsy asks Bop," the little elf solemnly declared. "Thank you, Miss and Master." He then toddled away.

Hermione just nodded and smiled, but her attention was more on Harry's closed expression.

"Harry?"

"If I get out of this stupid war alive, I am going to learn everything there is to know about house-elves and work for House-Elf Rights," he quietly stated. "This is wrong. Whatever is accepted as normal is wrong."

She didn't ask what had triggered such a reaction. There were many things he never really spoke of, that only could be guessed at, but she was proud of the fact that he managed to maintain a level of empathy, as unfortunate as that was. She clasped his hand, which was balled into a fist, with her left and gave him a one-armed hug. He smiled at her gratefully for not asking anything, and for just being there. She just leaned into him a bit.

"Come on, we better check out what Slughorn is up to," she said.

Slughorn, it turned out, was looking for them. And he wanted them to meet the dreaded Eldred Worple, who had come along with a vampire named Sanguini. While this Sanguini was supposed to be a friend, the way the being leered at the people around, especially the gaggle of young girls looking at the group with undisguised interest told its own story. House-elf rights were one thing, werewolf rights needed to account for people like Remus, but what about vampires who saw all living beings as prey?

"So as I was saying, Harry Potter, what do you think about your biography?"

"I would rather that any such attempt be made posthumously, if at all," Harry answered coldly.

Hermione winced at that. That was the second time that night that Harry had mentioned his death. "What he means is that he doesn't particularly care for people that he doesn't know knowing about him, and even if he did, I cannot see how he'd give in to such bouts of vanity. You do understand how it could be useful to the Dark Lord, don't you, Mr. Worple, knowing anything about him at all, if he really is this 'Chosen One' figure that the papers mention? I am sure you wouldn't want that."

"No, of course not!" blustered Worple, a touch horrified. "Of course, we can work on it after the war, though it won't be posthumous, for sure!"

"Thank you for the sentiment, Mr. Worple," Hermione replied with such a saccharine-infused tone, that even the man who had coexisted with vampires knew to beat a hasty retreat. "Bloody idiot," she swore in his wake.

"That's an understatement," Harry murmured. "Where _were_ these people last year?"

"I was talking about you, you dolt," she shot back. "Get it through your thick skull that we **_are_** going to make it through the war. It is important that you, more than anyone else, should believe that. I want your promise, and I will hold you to it."

"I can't lie," he replied wearily. "We know..."

She just huffed. "I might get an Unbreakable Vow from you about that," she threatened.

"Well, that might kill me if I break it, but that would be overkill considering I'd be dead already, don't you think?" he teased.

"Prat," she huffed again.

"I won't die surrendering to him like a coward, Hermione, or even give him a chance to hold someone a hostage with my life as a ransom," he promise her seriously. "He may try, but I won't let him win. I shall take him down with me, if it comes to that, but I shall not be reckless or stupidly noble, unless it gives us a way to win as conclusively as possible. Till then he will have the fight of his life. I can promise you that."

"That's better than nothing I suppose," she grumbled, as she smiled at Ginny across the room.

"That's all I have to give, anyway."

Meeting and greeting people around the place, especially those that called out to either of them, and always those that they knew, they approached the drinks table, where Pitsy was now stationed. The little elf beamed at them, and served them promptly.

"There you two are," called out Neville, relieved. "I missed you two after I first saw you."

"We ran into a few people," answered Hermione. "Where's Luna?"

"Talking to Trelawney," Neville answered with a shudder. "Told me how I had a touch of the Prophecy myself. Then she started talking about Firenze."

"That's the batty woman for you," Harry commiserated. "Saw any suspicious people?"

"None, really; all are the who's who of the magical world, mostly the sort that people would intern with after their NEWTs. There's this curse-breaker lady if you want to talk to her, Audrey Plant."

"Thanks mate, maybe I shall."

Neville just raised his glass as he shuffled over to Luna, who was now going over to Sanguini, presumably to ask him about Minister Scrimgeour, who she and her father maintained was a vampire. They had been treated to that theory a bit too often.

A bit later, Slughorn was on their case again. Knowing his true and mostly useful intentions now, they were considerably less reluctant to accompany him, as he introduced Hermione to Oliver Wren, a famous enchanter and arithmancer. He might even have been Dumbledore's teacher. He looked _that_ old.

"And this is the Arithmancy prodigy that Veneficus must have told you about."

"Veneficus?" asked the withered old man.

"Vector, you student, Oliver," Slughorn reminded the man with a slightly fake booming laugh.

"Ah, Veneficus," accepted Mr. Wren with a nod. "Always had good judgement, that lad did. You're a prodigy are you?"

"I wouldn't claim..."

"Oh pish-posh," the man batted away the modesty. "Tell me girl, are you a pure-blood? Are you related to Hector-Dagworth Granger?"

"No," replied Hermione a touch frostily.

"That's what I always said!" Wren replied in apparent elation, as he slapped Slughorn across the shoulder. "All those idiots thinking magic is the sole property of pure-bloods! Look at you! Give them a good one from me, little one!" Mr. Wren ordered her. "Create magic that they won't even be able to imagine! I will ensure Veneficus trains you well. Just be good. The last prodigy they told me about turned out to be a murdering monster, that Black girl."

"I will sir. Thank you sir," Hermione replied, with much surprise and a little guilt at having judged the old man so hastily. Bellatrix was an Arithmancy prodigy?

"Now, Horace, you were telling me about the pineapple whiskey?"

Slughorn nodded at Hermione with a wide smile and allowed them to leave.

"There are people out there Harry. Sometimes they can't do anything or even if they do, they pass unremarked. Sometimes, you just have to believe that what you are doing is right, and that you will succeed," Hermione assured him.

Having heard and seen the old man with his own eyes and ears, Harry could do nothing but nod in acceptance. He needed reassurance like everybody else too.

They soon made their way towards Audrey Plant, the curse-breaker, who asked Harry a very deceptively simple question. "What do you think might be the best way to break a curse?"

"There mightn't be a best way to break it. In fact, the friend who spoke to me about it told me that sometimes actually breaking the curse is not the best way at all. Some things are best left alone. Curses are security too."

"Listen to this friend well, Mr. Potter. Many people see the – as my friends like to say – the Indiana Jones-job of the magical world, as something glamorous. It calls upon your sense to often. Always be willing to seek advice and to learn. At every warded site, at every cursed corner, you will find that even your knowledge of what you don't know might be woefully inadequate."

"Of course, ma'am," Harry replied. It was a similar outlook to what Bill, a man about two decades younger than Plant, had developed and imparted to his pupil. "Thank you for the advice. I hope that means I may learn from you as well, if..."

"I understand. We may even end up facing a situation together one day, Mr. Potter, and I shall hope to impart you some of what I know then."

With a few pleasantries and a bow, they parted, and Harry and Hermione walked towards the food counter. A tap on his shoulder saw Harry turning around. It was Ron. They had patched things up amicably after the redhead had got a dressing down from his best mate and his sister. So, nothing more was said and they went back to being best friends, just like that, though with more than a little teasing.

"Look at whom Filch and his cat dragged in," he mouthed, flicking his eyes to the side.

It was Malfoy.

"He wasn't invited?"

"Abraxas Malfoy's wealth was no match for having a Death Eater as a father, it seems."

The scene was as made up as it could be. Malfoy nearly got away with as poor a lie as it was possible to come up with on short notice – at least to the eyes of those who suspected him of nefarious deeds. He was nearly in the Party till Snape took charge and dragged him away.

"Cloak?" proposed Ron.

"When am I ever without it?" Harry answered as he draped it over himself and Ron. "Get one of the others. Head Lavender off, and keep an eye out for anyone asking too many questions about our absence," he instructed Hermione.

"He looks a bit ill, doesn't he?" Ron whispered.

"Stressing about the failing job, perhaps?" Harry mused.

"Long may his illness stay," Ron hoped.

Already the two were involved in a hissing discussion about expulsion. That was till it became blatantly clear that Snape suspected Malfoy too.

"He said _your_ master," Harry noted, as Snape poked Malfoy about his Occlumency.

"He might have feared that someone would eavesdrop. We know that Snape is nothing if not careful."

Not as careful, as he should have been, they soon realised as Snape offered Malfoy help. The reason horrified them both.

"Bollocks!" swore Ron in high-pitched whisper. "He's gone and sworn an Unbreakable Vow!"

"Keep your voice down, will you?" Harry whispered back.

Snape seemed desperate enough to find out more about Draco's plan, but the close-mouthed teen was a better obstruction than Snape imagined. They had a moment when they heard the spy's unsurprising admission of spying on Dumbledore. It was only enough to make the most gullible person suspect him of actually having made a proclamation of great magnitude. That Harry suspected that Snape actually was on Voldemort's side still didn't factor into that.

"Well, we do have some news for the Order, don't we?" muttered Ron as they rejoined the party discreetly.

"That we do indeed."

* * *

As the group split and made their ways towards their respective common rooms, the scene had been related to them all.

"Professor Dumbledore told the Wizengamot that Snape was his spy," Susan reminded.

"What does it tell you that he is still alive?" argued Ernie.

"And what does it tell you that he is still at Hogwarts as well?" added Neville.

"Both of them know that he is a spy. So he is next to useless. Both Dumbledore and Voldemort control any information he may provide from and to either side," Harry explained. "He is nothing more than an owl."

"Provided he somehow manages to sneak in some information to at least one of the sides without his controllers knowing," corrected Hermione. "And this is a man who has managed to lie to both Dumbledore and V-Voldemort, _and_ remain alive."

"Then he might choose the winning side, not just to join, but rather his support may make the difference," Ron supplied. He and Lavender had left a bit early. After his talk with Harry "He could be the Queen Pawn. Use him to take a small piece or use him to bolster the board. The problem is that he is right at the centre of the board, a piece with hidden colours. Nobody knows whether he is black or white. And that's what makes him and helping or hindering him dangerous."

Quite a few looked surprised at Ron.

"What?" he demanded, as he became a bit uncomfortable at the staring.

"They are waking up to the fact that it is not only Snape who has hidden colours," Harry drily explained.

* * *

Hermione and Harry hung back as they reached the Gryffindor tower.

"So..."

"Yes..."

"Well it was..." Harry started, casting around for an appropriate description. Then he found it and used it at the same time as Hermione spoke.

"Eventful!"

"Wonderful!"

Both blushed. Knowing that this meant that Harry was going to fumble a bit Hermione took the reins in her hands and kissed him on the cheek, but a touch far too close to his lips. "Thank you, Harry. I had a wonderful time tonight."

She then disappeared behind the portrait, leaving behind a breathless and stunned Harry.


	7. Identity - II

**Identity – II**

Thanks to all readers, followers, favouriteers, and the reviewers: Kairan1979, RCPMione, Cheryl (guest), ObsessedWithHPFanFic, crocket (who has many good questions about the plot-holes in the actual books which I am sadly ill-equipped to address), surviversp, ranlynn, KnowInsight, CoolFanfictionLover, alix33, buterflypuss, deckman1234 and Mrh99.

Like 'The Great Manipulator', this story will not be having Lords and Ladies and all that inanity either. This is a Harmony pairing. Snape is an ambivalently treated character. A heart-felt, fake apology is tendered to fans of one Draco Malfoy, as well as for bashing fans. Also, Remus and Sirius always called Voldemort by that name, not You-Know-Who, and never flinched at it, in Canon.

Parts of this Chapter are taken from the book as they are. They are in bold.

* * *

One of the important things that went the new Order's way was reported in the newspapers.

 ** _Ministry bigwigs targeted by mystery burglar_**

 ** _Fourteen bureaucrats' houses burgled._**

Obviously, when stealing back the Black family stuff, Dung had sought to replenish his loot a bit. It was initially a matter of great worry, and Kreacher had been summoned.

"Nasty Thief is being telling Kreacher that if only little Black Family Treasure being stolen back, then nasty buying thieves is being knowing what is being stolen and who the thief is! Nasty thief is saying this is cover."

"Ah..."

It had then been a short logical step forward to realise that since the people in question had complained, Dung had steered clear of any other cursed objects to drive away suspicion. Nobody would complain if they were divested of dark objects after all. It was illegal, possessing dark objects was.

That was good.

The other important thing was that Slughorn had come through. He had provided them with lists and references for some of the most corrosive potions and their antidotes. The King's Water, which ironically was the very thing that muggles knew as Aqua Regia, was so corrosive, it dissolved gold. And it was somehow possible to store it in heavy wax.

Of course, it wasn't the wisest thing to use, since it could just as easily harm those using it to ward off the Death Eaters.

But the potions like the Skin Eater Solution, Burning Base, and so on were easy to handle. They had been prepared and filled in glass vials. It of course, necessitated another contract to ensure that they were only used in self-defence. Justin then extended the Pepper Spray for similar purposes, and had ensured that the Pepper didn't spread.

It was, along with the coloured paper – yellow for help, red for SOS – which was distributed and connected to all DA coins, the best safety gift that the DA could have been given from those amongst its members. And then the Dementors were just an excuse for distributing chocolate.

The positivity that abounded among them was defence enough, in reality.

* * *

"You actually heard him say that he had sworn an Unbreakable Vow?" Remus clarified for the umpteenth time.

"Ron is not deaf, and I am practically blind but certainly not deaf, Moony. If you ask me again I will give you a dog's tail that will tickle you uncomfortably in uncomfortable places every time you forget about it," Harry threatened, irked by the repetitive line of questioning. "I will get the twins to do it, anyway," he added as an afterthought.

Turning decidedly green at the prospect of a dog's tail doing anything of that sort to him, a colour that was impressive for a werewolf who had seen many depravities mankind and those of other species had to offer, Remus hurriedly dropped the matter.

"Have you considered the implications of this?"

"That either Voldemort had good reason to distrust Snape or that Snape was in enough trouble with some really powerful Death Eater like Bellatrix to be coerced into a Vow?"

"I will take that as a yes. In fact, considering the way the people in question are related, I would venture that it was Bellatrix, and Narcissa probably, united in a show of motherly concern."

"What worries me is that either Dumbledore doesn't know it..." Ron butted in as the pair reported the conversation they had heard firsthand.

"Which I find grudgingly probable," Kingsley acknowledged, a worried frown marring his usually placid features.

"Or that Dumbledore _does_ know of that."

"Why is that more worrying?" asked Molly a bit uncertainly, unable to process what either of the boys was actually thinking.

It was disconcerting for the woman to see the children able to process things in a way that she wasn't able to even think forward to. More and more it was becoming evident that it wasn't the children who were out-of-place; it was she. And that scared her. That wasn't what she wanted for them. They were supposed to be secure, protected – they might know about the terrible things in the world, but they weren't supposed to face them. Yet they had, more than a few older Order members put together. That she and her generation had failed to secure that ideal made her feel very inadequate and guilty as a parent.

"It means he trusts Snape to carry out whatever he has vowed to do. In fact, since he might know and hasn't told the Order, well, I think that might depict the exact pecking order of those he trusts, so to speak," Hermione explained in the boys' stead. She had given her parents the time of an hour later than usual to account for the reporting. Mad-Eye and Remus were going to escort her, citing security reasons. "If he trusted the rest of the Order enough, he would have asked you all to provide Snape a reasonable cover. That is of course assuming that he knows at all, or assuming that Snape not having a cover is a plan."

It took them all a very long moment to process.

"This is a very twisted game being played, and we don't know _who_ is playing the game," Ron explained seriously.

"I don't like this," Moody grumbled. "We can't confront Albus about this either. This is buggered up right up to the stomach."

Everyone ignored Mad-Eye's profanity with practised ease.

"Has Snape been overtly antagonistic towards any of you?" Bill asked.

"Not more than usual," Neville answered. "In fact, we were a bit shocked that he wasn't tormenting us more than usual since becoming the DADA professor, but then well, I think the Vow kind of explains it."

"It doesn't actually," Fleur softly intervened.

"What do you mean?" Ginny demanded, quite less harshly than usual.

"The Nordic Tiger-Beetles are very territorial, and constantly fight. Even after gaining a new territory, they are very vicious, because if they don't remain so, other Beetles will attack and take it. If they are excessively aggressive, then the other females think that they have the best breeding male, and will attack repeatedly. By not changing their behaviour, they can hide many more secrets." That was typically Luna.

"I think I understand what she said," Ron intervened before anyone else could protest in annoyance at her explanation, because they didn't understand her well enough. It always seemed like a little game between the two and everyone else where he could translate what she meant the best; and dare he admit it, it was fun and he secretly liked it that he was the one who could translate what she said the best. "If Snape changes his behaviour much, one way or the other, everyone will get suspicious. Till he has his cover with either side, he has to behave in a way that is considered normal; at least for him, anyway."

"I think we all understood that, Ronniekins," Harry ribbed, more to spare his friend the frosty glare Luna was attempting. She was trying, the poor girl, but she was actually oddly incapable of being cold towards anyone much. "Just don't ever put any Snape-reference and "breeding" in one sentence ever again, okay?" he beseeched her. It was enough for her to crack a ghost of a smile.

People often forgot that the fact that they were teenagers would rear its head at the most inopportune moments.

"I am sure Sirius would have very vehemently agreed," Remus remarked with a smile.

"That still leaves us with the question. What to do now?" Kingsley interrupted. He often ran interference when Mad-Eye's ire was drawn by the age-appropriate actions of the younger members. "I mean, I am actually convinced that Dumbledore does know all of this," he reiterated. "He has never had a problem asking us to perform some unofficial investigative duties for the Order before, and now, with this attack, there has been a very lax attitude generally. It bothers me," he admitted, with the most troubled and angry voice he could muster.

"The easiest thing would be to trap the boy," Mad-Eye declared.

"Which in turn would probably violate Snape's Vow, something that we do not know enough about, beyond the fact that it exists," Bill countered mildly. "At this time, disposing of him is not the best thing we can do, not with such paucity of intelligence that we are faced with."

Mad-Eye nodded at that.

"Well, about that," started Neville a bit stutteringly, before shaking his head a bit forcefully and saying out aloud, "I think I have an idea."

"Yes?"

"Well, you know, we were talking that day, and we are sure that Malfoy has an accomplice in Hogsmeade – in fact, an accomplice that could easily mingle with the students without anyone ever becoming suspicious. That has to be how he got the necklace to Katie."

The others nodded encouragingly. Neville steeled himself to explain his theory further. He had put a lot of thought into this.

"In fact, I don't think Katie ever was an intended victim. Acceptable collateral damage perhaps, but she wasn't the intended victim. But whoever gave her that was someone that people around her were not surprised to see her talking to, or even if they didn't see her talking to, it was someone they wouldn't think twice about her being alone with."

"Her boyfriend, if she has one?" Molly wondered out loud.

"She doesn't, actually," Ginny informed them all.

"Her former boyfriend maybe?" her mother persisted.

"Lee hasn't been by to meet her since he left, mum."

"I can categorically support that, actually," Harry mildly said. "Lee works with the twins, and we know that the shop is doing too well to let an employee go missing for that long enough on a weekend, when sales are the best."

"And why do you know about when the sales are best?"

"They tell me?" he replied weakly with an even weaker grin.

She gave him a glare that promised words about the matter later.

"That doesn't leave a whole other bunch of suspects," Remus intervened to bring the matter back on track.

"Just the entire group of students who went to Hogsmeade," Fleur countered.

"Katie is worse than Ron on that account," Hermione objected. "She wouldn't be caught dead speaking to a Slytherin."

"Teenagers like to have secrets."

"Not when their friend is with them for the entire time."

"Leanne!" exclaimed Harry.

"Exactly," replied Neville, as he drew attention back to what he was saying. "We only have her word that Katie went to the bathroom at the Three Broomsticks and returned with the package."

"She was actually distraught at what happened to Katie," Hermione doubtfully said.

"If her family was threatened and she was forced into doing something like that to her best friend, I am sure she would be distraught."

"Didn't you say that Katie was not targeted?"

"It is entirely probable that Leanne was required to get the necklace to the actual intended victim, and chose the easiest person to help her."

"That is credible," agreed Mad-Eye. "However, again, on purely a suspicion, she cannot be interrogated, let alone arrested."

"But she was trying – actually trying – to get the parcel away from Katie. And Katie was behaving like she was Imperiused!" Hermione argued.

"And that adds another set of problems, because the _Priori Incantato_ spell is useless after so many days, especially considering the number of spells an adult witch may cast, never mind the fact that she is in school, so it is impossible to prove one way or the other."

"Not to say that Neville is entirely wrong, but what if Leanne was telling the truth?" asked Arthur. "I don't think she should be considered a false witness just like that."

"Then that still narrows the suspects to all female or female-appearing individuals inside the Three Broomsticks at that time."

"How does this help us, though?"

"Well, the idea is to flush out whoever is helping Malfoy. If we constantly force his plans to fail – because that won't be his only attempt – then eventually, he will run out of time and openly do something drastic in desperation. See, he may have other help – someone through whom he can act to stay hidden himself. This way, we don't need to get into Snape's way unless absolutely necessary. If he does act then, then we shall know which side Snape is truly on. We shall know his true identity."

He was rewarded with commending look from both Aurors.

"I don't know about your wand-work boy, but you've got both your father and mother's brains in you. One of the finest investigative teams they made. We'd to change the rules to allow them to work together. Best change we ever made."

Neville swelled a bit. It felt nice to be recognised, and understood and most importantly, heard. And it didn't hurt that he was compared favourably to his parents by someone like Mad-ye Moody. That was a first.

"Do you have any way to keep tabs on Malfoy?" Remus slyly questioned.

He expected an answer from Harry, obviously, but it never came, for the young man was sitting with his shoulders hunched, eyes closed and his face partially obscured by joined hands.

"Harry?"

"Yes?" asked Harry. He was startled at being called upon.

"Did you even hear...?"

"Sorry, I was a bit out of it. I was thinking. Neville's on the right track, but he's veering off course a bit." Turning to his friend, Harry reminded, "Remember what Dean said? You know, about this accomplice of Malfoy being someone who has to know Hogsmeade well?"

"Yes..."

"And you are right about how whoever Katie was in contact with was not surprising at all."

"Yeah...?"

"So I don't think it is Leanne who is the problem. Remember, this is Malfoy we are dealing with. Sinister, arrogant, someone who will do anything to get what he wants; he is all that. But clever enough to keep those two people apart so as to leave multiple trails to nowhere for others to chase; to act through an intermediary? No. I think you overestimated him there. If we whittle it down to the lowest point in common, you'll see it too."

"See what?"

"The person who _has_ to be in the Three Broomsticks, who can interact with anyone without raising suspicion, who can easily give anyone a parcel or handle one anyway without raising suspicion, and who can know what is normal for Hogsmeade, **_and_** , assuming Leanne is right, _can_ go to the ladies' bathroom, is one and the same."

Put like that, there was only _one_ logical answer, one that Kingsley breathed out in a hushed whisper the identity of their person of interest: "Rosmerta!"

* * *

One of the things that looking for alternative means to combat Voldemort was the fact that Lupin was very forthcoming about his true opinion regarding what was needed to bring what he called his fellows to heel. He chose not to speak that around the under-aged witches and wizards, but among his peers...

"Simply put, Fenrir is a monster. He bites children and raises them as his own army. As much as I detest Umbridge, I can see why she would want to curtail werewolf rights. People like me who have tried to control the wolf and embrace their humanity are not exactly...abundant among the community. He is like a fanatic who can brainwash those he holds prisoner into believing his version of werewolf rights. Dumbledore's belief that some can be broken away won't hold water so long as Greyback is alive."

"And if he dies?"

"There are at this moment six werewolves who can take his place and keep them on Voldemort's side."

"If they are all gone?"

"Then we can speak about reasoning with the rest."

"Remus, do you know these seven people well enough to describe them?" Bill asked.

"Why?"

"I have some contacts with mercenaries due to my profession."

"You mean bounty hunters."

"Yes."

"You want them killed."

"I want them killed, and their bodies to be placed in Diagon Alley for all to see. It is quite standard among warring factions of various tribes, Remus. Their main weapon is fear. Take them out, and they no longer have that weapon. Then Voldemort no longer has them as a weapon."

"This has been tried before you know. I narrowly escaped being hunted myself. Dumbledore saved me then."

"There are other ways, Remus."

"Such as?" demanded the werewolf.

"Elves; they may not hurt humans fatally, but their definition of humans is what we tell them it is. They are the perfect assassins."

Everyone's mouths fell open at that.

"It's just a thought," Bill concluded. He had set the cat among the pigeons, which was all that he intended to do. If he wanted deliberations, he would have spoken to everyone.

And he was succeeding – if Mad-Eye's thoughtful face was anything to go by. Some people needed to be dealt with very harshly even though killing was not a universal solution – it would make them as bad as the Death Eaters.

* * *

Mad-Eye was still at the Burrow that evening, when Harry approached him.

"Professor?" addressed Harry.

"I've never been your Professor, boy," Mad-Eye grunted.

"Well, I am hoping you will be now."

Mad-Eye looked at Harry appraisingly. Then he grunted again. "What?"

"When Voldemort attacked with large groups of Death Eaters, what did you do?"

Now he had both of Mad-Eye's eyes upon him, and the man's entire attention.

"Why do you ask?"

"I don't think that we will have much time before that starts happening again. Now that he has been exposed..."

"He will get bolder and attack places like Diagon Alley..."

"In the summer, especially, when many muggleborn are shown around," Harry completed with a nod. "I fear he might attack Hogsmeade too."

"Aye, he might."

Harry kept looking at the man expectantly.

"Do you truly want to know?"

"Yes."

"We killed them."

Harry was silent for a moment. "Yes. I can gather that. But how many could you take out that fast?"

"You don't feel that it is wrong?"

"It is wrong to kill innocent people or even descend to the level of those that are evil. But one day, I might be in that situation, and it will be my people standing behind me. What I think will not matter. I do not matter. I would rather they be disgusted by me and alive, than dead because it was wrong to do that. I need to have something in my quiver of arrows, something that will be a last resort. Please. Teach me."

"It doesn't bother you that you may have to sacrifice what you have so far believed, mostly because you are a sensible person?"

"Luna thinks that Dumbledore believes I may have to die to take Voldemort down. I am human, you know; my beliefs will be sacrificed faster than my life," he replied self-deprecatingly.

Mad-Eye closed his eyes regretfully. If only the boy knew. He _did_ matter; that his humanity was what made himimportant. But then it was that willingness to believe that he didn't matter made him matter to others, didn't it? He felt something he hadn't felt often; pride.

"Fine, then. We shall go out tomorrow."

There was no joy or excitement or anticipation on the boy's face, only resignation. Mad-Eye didn't think he would regret it.

* * *

It was on Christmas day though, that Harry truly lost his temper.

The day started in the truly festive spirits, though Mrs. Weasley felt Percy's absence deeply. The customary jumper, with a large Golden Snitch on the front, a test-case of new products from the twins (which was in response to a prank Harry had pulled on them the previous day, surely) and a mirror from Hermione. He tried speaking her name into it, but apparently, that wasn't its function. He saw her smiling face, but that was about it.

Turning it around, he saw what was written. "You shall see me as you see in your mind's eye." It was, in retrospect a singularly terrible gift to give a teenage boy who liked the girl in question. Fortunately for her, she had not imagined the circumstances and had not exactly managed to capture the whole mind's eye thing like the Mirror of Erised that she was aiming for.

Neville had sent him a bouquet of gladioluses which signified brotherhood. Luna had sent him a butterbeer cork necklace. Ron had given him his usual chocolate frog box.

His own gifts to them seemed a little too impersonal, in retrospect.

Then there was Lavender's gift to Ron which Ron threatened would have dire consequences if the twins got to know about it.

"Of course I won't! Do you really think...?"

That mollified Ron, till he found out that Ginny found out about it by...er...accident.

He became butt of jokes for quite some time, jokes up to and including calling the necklace bearing the words "My Sweetheart" a dog's tag, Won-Won's pet-belt and so on and so forth. Sometimes Ron really hated Harry. It wasn't enough that he had the twins and Ginny as siblings, never mind Bill and Charlie; now his best mate joined in on it too!

With Remus staying at the Burrow, the now makeshift Headquarters, and Fleur needling her mother-in-law-to-be with her horrendously, uncannily close impersonation of Celestina Warbeck's banshee-like wails ( _how_ Mrs. Weasley managed to listen to, let alone _like_ those songs nobody knew, but they had reached a consensus – children never could understand the music their parents liked) it seemed like a jolly good time.

It was, till Rufus Scrimgeour turned up with Percy in tow.

"Bill, Remus," Harry called out, even as Mrs. Weasley exclaimed happily about Percy's return. "I want you with me."

"Of course," Bill assured with narrowed eyes. His brother's stiffness didn't escape the curse-breaker's trained eyes.

"This is a Ministry ploy, Harry," Remus cautioned through pursed lips.

"Perhaps we can have a recording, Remus?" Bill suggested.

"An excellent suggestion," Remus courteously agreed, his lips turning upwards in a grim smile.

"What are you two talking about?"

"He wants something from you, obviously. We can't stop you from promising anything, but should he hound you for something, then we must have a recording of his promises in return," Remus explained. "He wants it to be unidirectional. Don't agree anything unless you get something in return."

"Oh. That might work. I was thinking of attacking him from the first moment itself."

"Why?"

"He's using Percy and playing with Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. I abhor such people."

"Start that way and keep him unbalanced before getting him to agree to something," Bill hurriedly suggested as the backdoor opened to Percy.

It was rather obvious that Percy had been instantly forgiven by his mother as she was quick to gather him in her arms even after the very obviously curt "Happy Christmas" that Percy spewed in lieu of a greeting.

 **Rufus Scrimgeour paused in the doorway, leaning on his walking-stick and smiling, as he observed this affecting scene.**

 **"You must forgive this intrusion," he said, when Mrs. Weasley looked around at him, beaming and wiping her eyes. "Percy and I were in the vicinity — working, you know — and he couldn't resist dropping in and seeing you all."**

 **But Percy showed no sign of wanting to greet any of the rest of the family. He stood, poker-straight and awkward-looking, and stared over everybody else's heads. Mr. Weasley, Fred, and George were all observing him, stony-faced.**

Harry opened his mouth to pass a comment, but was stopped by Bill who clutched his shoulder to signal him to remain silent. He looked around to see Ron and Ginny glowering at their brother sulphurously, before turning to Bill whose face showed open distrust.

"Wait," Bill mouthed.

It was important to let the Minister make his mistakes before attacking him. The man was playing up the occasion as he behaved graciously with Mrs. Weasley, who seemed very flustered. Nothing would be achieved unless the man verbalised his intent.

 **"** **...we've only looked in for five minutes, so I'll have a stroll around the yard while you catch up with Percy. No, no, I assure you I don't want to butt in! Well, if anybody cared to show me your charming garden . . . Ah, that young man is finished, why doesn't he take a stroll with me?"**

 **The atmosphere around the table changed perceptibly. Every-body looked from Scrimgeour to Harry. Nobody seemed to find Scrimgeour's pretence that he did not know Harry's name convincing, or find it natural that he should be chosen to accompany the Minister around the garden when Ginny, Fleur, and George also had clean plates.**

Bill's pat on his shoulder was enough of a signal.

"It is Christmas Day, Minister," Harry snidely remarked as he stayed rooted to his chair. "At least do not lie and play your games today."

The atmosphere became as decidedly cold as the one outside.

"Nobody asked you to..." Percy started pompously, but was silenced by the cold glare all his siblings levelled at him.

"Nobody asked _you_ to speak, Percy. This newly elected liar does, however, wish to speak to me. Do mind your manners in a place **_you_** stopped calling 'home'."

"You have passed judgement regarding my character already, Mr. Potter?"

"Last year the Minister turned Percy against his family. This year you use him as an excuse to come here, when it is so clear that this is the last place where he wants to be. You don't exactly inspire much confidence about your...character, Minister."

"Perhaps we can take this matter outside and resolve our differences while the family resolves its internal matters?"

The message was loud and clear. " _You_ are not a part of _them_ , Potter."

"Then Harry would have to remain behind, I am afraid," Arthur remarked simply, crumbling the Minister's ploy. "Internal matters, as you so rightly said."

"I am afraid I must insist," Scrimgeour coldly replied.

"Bill, if you and Remus would show the Minister around...?"

"Of course, dad," Bill replied, seizing the opening, as he steered Harry by his shoulder, Remus and the very disgruntled Minister following in their wake.

 **They walked across the yard toward the Weasleys' overgrown, snow-covered garden, Scrimgeour limping slightly** at Harry's side as he caught up with him and Bill **. He had, Harry knew, been Head of the Auror office; he looked tough and battle-scarred, very different from portly Fudge in his bowler hat.**

"It seems we got off the wrong foot, Mr. Potter," Scrimgeour persisted. He was certainly not as affable or graceful as he seemed before being accused of lying and manipulating.

"Have we now?"

Bill and Remus remained close by to hear everything and intervene if necessary.

"Indeed. In fact if these gentlemen would afford us a moment of privacy..."

"No. Harry is a minor, and I shall not allow any Ministry personnel that he feels uncomfortable around to be alone with him, especially after repeated attacks upon his person by the Minister's aides," Bill decisively intervened. While Remus would've said the same thing, he was there as muscle on the Weasley property. They didn't want him getting directly involved, giving the Minister an excuse to persecute the lycanthrope.

"You do seem to be particularly attached..."

"I shall not appreciate any attempts to use this information, no matter how widely known, Minister."

Harry was acting a lot like a porcupine.

"You seem determined to hate me, when, in spite of my long-held wish, I haven't met you before."

"It was easy to guess that you wanted to. I knew of your predecessor's attempts. You haven't shown yourself to be different, as of yet."

Scrimgeour stopped and peered at Harry in frank irritation.

"Why do you insist upon this animosity?"

"I should think that would be very apparent, Minister," Harry levelly replied. "I do not like traitors."

"Are you accusing me of...?"

"Let's get to what you really want, Minister, before we can get to my accusations."

"Fine; so be it. There are rumours floating around of a prophecy, that you are the 'Chosen One'..."

"An amazingly convenient rumour after last year, don't you think?"

"Has Dumbledore spoken of it to you?"

"Some matters were discussed."

"What did he say? What did he tell you?"

This really was what Scrimgeour had come for.

"I believe I am entitled to my private discussions with my Headmaster."

"Some would disagree."

"They would be entitled to do so privately. However, what Dumbledore chooses to tell me is nobody else's business except his and mine. If I choose to divulge it, I hope you can appreciate the level of trust therein implied."

"Well," Scrimgeour commented airily, "it really doesn't matter, does it, whether or not you are the chosen one?"

"I do not see where this leads to, for you."

"For me...? Of course, it shall mean a lot to you, but I am but a humble servant to the Wizarding community at large, Mr. Potter... And what they believe, what they perceive..."

Harry levelled a blank stare at Scrimgeour, forcing him to continue.

"In spite of your very apparent ill-will towards the Ministry, I suppose you can agree that we have to do what's best for the people," Scrimgeour patronisingly said, attempting to put the onus on Harry, "and well, **people believe you are 'the Chosen One,' you see," said Scrimgeour. "They think you quite the hero — which, of course, you are, Harry, chosen or not!"**

Both the Minister and his quarry could see where he had faltered. The Minister knew that Harry knew that he didn't think much of him.

 **"** **How many times have you faced He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named now? Well, anyway,"** he gamely went on with his pre-decided speech, without waiting for a reply, **"the point is that you are a symbol of hope for many, Harry.** The idea of a saviour, of someone destined to defeat He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, destined to deliver our world from this darkness – you can see how that appeals to people. We would only like you to reinforce moral, a bit, give it a boost, while you...ah...stand alongside the Ministry. Most would consider it a duty."

Both men knew how ridiculous that statement was. Harry was nothing if not openly antagonistic towards Ministry overtures.

"Stand alongside the Ministry," Harry parroted with tremendous disdain. "That would be my _duty_."

"You shan't find it taxing," pressed Scrimgeour. "Just a few appearances in and around the Ministry building to let people know that we are having a mutually co-operative decision where the war is concerned would be enough. **And of course, while you were there, you would have ample opportunity to speak to Gawain Robards, my successor as Head of the Auror office. Dolores Umbridge has told me that you cherish an ambition to become an Auror. Well, that could be arranged very easily..."**

"He's just killed any infinitesimal chances at getting Harry to agreeing to this stupidity, hasn't he?" Bill asked Remus conversationally, loud enough to be heard by the Minister.

"You want my tacit approval for the Ministry's actions. Is that it?" Harry shot at the man. "I am supposed to make people believe that the Ministry is doing the right things?"

"It is necessary. Even you should be able to see that."

"All for bolstering public moral, isn't it?" Harry wondered thoughtfully.

The Minister was disarmed by this sudden change of tone.

"Yes..."

"A lie is better than the truth?" Harry scathingly asked.

"You don't understand. At sixteen...

"No. You don't understand. I won't be your little pawn. I owe you nothing. I have nothing to prove to the likes of you. If at all it is you who have to prove to me that you are not on Voldemort's side," Harry retorted with a snarl. "Making Stan Shunpike a scapegoat, that's the Ministry action. And you want me to propagate a lie. You want me to let you use me and be happy about it."

"It would be your duty..."

"It bloody fucking well isn't my damned duty!" Harry declared, keeping his voice level with tremendous effort, yet drawing the attention of every person on the premises as he spoke clearly. Shouting and raging would lessen the effect. Nobody listens to a shouting teen. Yet finally Harry had someone to vent out, and who was a part of the system that kept failing him.

"I consider the lot of you traitors! You have the audacity to talk to me about duty? Where were you when you were supposed to perform your duty and investigate into Sirius' case? Where were you when you were supposed to investigate Cedric Diggory's death, **_former Head of the Aurors_**? Where were you when your support was needed when I tried telling everyone Voldemort was back?" It was in a tone of scoffing sarcasm. "I must have missed your vociferous support."

With each word he advanced upon the significantly taller former Head Auror. It was enough to draw everyone into the backyard.

"Now see here..." Scrimgeour started defensively as his failings were thrown into his face. He had not counted on the boy having this deep a grudge.

"I shall see nothing," Harry stated pleasantly. "You want me to work for you? You want me to support your **_regime_**?" he spat the last word as if it were something poisonous. "Then prove to me that you can be trusted. I am not beholden to you. **_You_** need **_me_**. Try Fudge and Umbridge and every Death Eater for treason. Execute the Death Eaters after making sure they **_are_** Death Eaters in the first place, for you really have butterfingers in place of a prison. Stop letting the likes of Malfoy slip through..."

"You know I cannot do that. They are old families!"

"Learn to delink politics and public safety first, Minister. I thought you were serious about opposing Voldemort? Do not make a liar out of yourself. I won't be kind enough to just let them sleep the next time we fight. Oh, I won't kill them and do your job for you. But they shall never raise their wand again. Whom will you support then, I wonder?"

"How will you prove their guilt...?"

"I have nothing to prove to you. You, have to prove yourself to me, I remember saying that," Harry reminded with a tone of extreme condescension. "You are neither deaf, nor are you an idiot. Stop trying to pretend you've got any degree of control over the Chosen One, and work for a change."

"You aren't the Chosen One then?"

"Didn't you say that it didn't matter?"

"It was tactless..."

"And also the only true thing you have ever said to me." Harry's temper was about to flare again. "Prove yourself and then speak to me, Minister. Until then, I shall remember this lesson by Dolores Umbridge!" He pushed his scarred hand right into the Minister vision. "I do not tell lies!"

The Minister changed tracks, mostly to discombobulate Harry with a non-sequitur. "What's Dumbledore up to?"

"None of your business, I should presume. I can see why he keeps secrets from the likes of you."

"You out to tell me, but you won't will you?"

"I am glad that we finally understand each other," Harry retorted.

"I shall find out anyway."

"Which means you shall not consider my demands and instead will try to impede the man actually trying to oppose Voldemort. I wonder how people would react if they knew..."

"You wouldn't!"

"I would. If that is what it takes to destroy Voldemort, I shall oppose the Ministry again. I am sure the people would believe me over you, this time." Harry shook his head dismissively. There was no change. "A bit of unsolicited advice, Minister; do try to do the right thing. Don't repeat Fudge's mistakes. Stop persecuting those who oppose Voldemort and work against him, for a change. Opposing those who oppose Voldemort doesn't seem to work too well for those in power in the long run. Stop treating us as your enemies."

"You are Dumbledore's man through and through aren't you, Potter? He says the same things, after all."

"Believe that to be my identity if it makes you feel better, Scrimgeour. The truth remains that I am certainly not the Ministry's stooge. Just remember that Voldemort and the Death Eaters are my enemies. Protect them as Fudge did, and you shall be one too. You have a choice. Do the right thing and delink politics, bloodlines and public safety, and have me as an ally, or declare yourself as Voldemort's supporter. There will be no neutrality, no third front. It complicates things unnecessarily."

He then deliberately turned his back on Scrimgeour, shot the stunned Percy a look of sheer disgust, mouthed "little rat" at him, and walked away with his head held high.

It was only much later, that he realised that he had not been able to honestly claim that he was Dumbledore's man through and through, as he had been for so many years, when Scrimgeour had accused him of it. What did that make him now?

* * *

On Boxing Day, the new Order except the two Aurors stood within the halls of Grimmauld Place, the previous day's confrontation fresh on everyone's mind. The due date for Kreacher and Dung's job had ended three days prior. Both were alive. That meant they were successful.

The changes were spontaneous. Molly Weasley, it seemed was the worst affected. For a woman who had seemed kind to all those who knew her, she suddenly transformed into an angry banshee, and everyone could see that there was something that affected her. It explained enough about the year spent in the official Headquarters.

"This horrible, horrible place again!" she screeched. "So dirty, I doubt even the hovels of scarlet women are this bad!" She had turned florid, and with her hands on her hips, she was already starting to shout and rage.

"Dad, take her out of this place. We will deal with this!"

Arthur needed no more words to spring into action as he ushered his wife out of the house.

"There's something here that's very dark, isn't it?" Harry asked his mentor.

"The very darkest things, Harry," Bill grimly replied. "Some people like mum can't stand Dark Magic. That is not to say that the rest of us do, but they have the strongest reaction to it. And here I kept wondering why she behaved so oddly all of last year."

Presently, Dung and Kreacher appeared before them. There were some twelve hundred individual items.

"I have brought it all back," Dung blurted out in a quivering voice.

"Kreacher is checking," the elf concurred with nasty solemnity, something that he alone could do. "Everything is being back."

"Good," Harry brusquely retorted as the elf popped away muttering insanely, before together, Bill, Remus, Fleur and he sifted through the pile that Dung had deposited. Over five hundred pieces of cutlery, glasses and whatever else, fine china plates...the list went on.

"You may go, Dung. Remember that your silence is for your own protection."

The cursed objects were fewer but decidedly more ornate.

A golden ash-tray that spewed poisonous but sweet-smelling fumes the more it was filled; the music box they had encountered before; a small silver mirror that trapped the person looking into it for long enough if one wasn't careful; a cursed pin that killed its users...one by one they were segregated, before Bill set up a large area for runes and set them ablaze with what Harry recognised as Fiendfyre (Moody's tutelage was bearing fruit).

On and on it went till finally...

Harry hissed in pain as he clutched the scar, the other hand holding a locket with a serpentine 'S' upon it, embedded with emeralds.

"Harry!" cried Remus reflexively as he dropped the object he was holding an approached the former. "What happened?"

"This thing..." Harry gritted out as he threw the locket away, "It is Tom's!"

Within moments, Bill was upon them, having forcibly parted the object from Harry's hands. He cast all sorts of spells, none of which Harry would have recognised even had he tried.

"It is. Well done, Harry. You have given us the second clue."

"I have?"

"The memories, Harry" Bill explained. "None of us had found anything of note in them except the thieving, but now, now we know why he needed these things. You need to know this soon, and I think it will be best if it comes from Dumbledore, because I don't think you can yet hide that you might know this from him."

He had barely completed the last word when he was blasted off his feet.

"Nasty blood-traitor is being taking Master Regulus'..."

"Silence!" ordered Harry."You are not to harm anyone here! What do you mean this is Master Regulus'?"

Harry knew of Sirius' brother, but to think that this possession of Tom was his...

"Master Regulus is being giving it to Kreacher!" the elf protested stoutly.

"Do not lie to us, elf!" Remus growled. "Tell us the whole truth!"

"Obey him, you disgraced elf!" ordered Harry coldly, pointing his wand at Kreacher.

After several protestations, out tumbled a terrible story that revealed the true identity of Regulus Black – as a man who sacrificed himself to retrieve that locket, one of the secrets of Voldemort's dark immortality; as a man who cared for the miserable elf enough to sacrifice himself in its stead; as a man, who, in the end, stood for what was right.

It took tremendous effort to not rage at the unfairness of it all.

"I don't understand you," Harry fiercely whispered. "Regulus betrayed Voldemort. Sirius fought against him. The Lestranges and the Malfoys follow the man who caused Regulus' death. Why did you betray Sirius to him?"

The sobbing, broken shell of an elf did not respond, caught as it was in the terrible memories.

Ron, of all people, though, had an answer.

"I don't think either Sirius or Kreacher ever considered Sirius as a part of the Black family, truly, Harry. That hag in the portrait hated Sirius in life, but loved Regulus. So it didn't matter who Regulus stood against in the end. Walburga said that You-Know-Who was right, so he was right. But Kreacher adored Regulus, so he was right too. And Walburga never knew about Regulus' betrayal, did she? She hated Sirius and so Kreacher hated Sirius. Even he hated Kreacher, though he cared about Winky enough to worry a little about her.

"Merlin, Hermione's right. These elves are all conditioned to think in one way. Their logic begins and ends at what their master says. Dobby is even more of a weirdo, it seems."

Ron could feel his best friend's turmoil, never mind his teaspoon-sized emotional range. Nothing made sense, really.

Bill crouched down next to Kreacher. "Listen, Kreacher, I can help you. I am trained to destroy these things; it's what I do for a living. Would you like me to help?"

"Nasty red blood-traitor asks Kreacher? Blood-traitor says it can help, but what would Kreacher's poor mistress say?"

"Kreacher's poor Mistress says nothing. I ordered you to burn the portrait in my presence," spat Harry, reasserting his will over the situation.

He honestly hated the elf. Nothing that even Hermione said would make him look at it with sympathy, and he was one of those rare wizards that treated elves with humanity. Perhaps, like Sirius, he too saw the elfish personification of all that he hated in that accursed being. And there were things he could not forget or forgive. It was impossible for some events to not change a person from deep within.

"Do it. Do it now!"

Kreacher screeched and hollered and spewed the vilest, foulest language Harry had ever heard.

"Are you done?"

Kreacher could hardly nod to show his capitulation.

"Good; from now on, you have no master but me, till I say otherwise. You answer to nobody else but me. You shall answer nobody else's calls but mine. Do you understand?"

Kreacher broke down in great sobs. Harry was cutting him off from Bellatrix and Narcissa, the only Blacks by birth that he recognised, and he was also taking away the only company the elf had had in that house for years.

"Do you understand, Kreacher?"

"Kreacher understands," the elf replied morosely.

"Burn that damn portrait."

And so Kreacher burnt it, all the while shooting Harry looks of deepest loathing.

As the last of Walburga's wails died away, Harry's murderous look abated. "Now, Bill _will_ destroy that thing. You will remove any magic that you have cast on it, immediately."

Now thoroughly broken, Kreacher mutely complied.

"By Merlin, that's the locket in the memory Dumbledore showed!" Remus exclaimed.

"So it is. It seems you were right again, Ron. There was a kind of Confounding Charm on it. It was the elfish version of it," Harry praised, remembering something Ron and Luna had said. Ron though, didn't reply. "Ron?"

"It's calling to me," he whispered in a strangled manner, stepping towards it. "It says it has a way to help me become more, to become better, of..." he continued, as he stepped towards it with the clear intention of handling it. It was obvious that he had inherited Molly's bad reaction to Dark Magic. The next moment he slumped to the floor as Remus stunned him, before carrying him away as well.

"It seems to run through your mum's side of the family," Fleur hypothesised.

"I don't care. We need to get rid of it before it actually hurts anyone else," muttered Harry.

Bill nodded jerkily, as he ordered the other two to stand back. He _was_ Fleur's superior, and he _was_ better trained, so both obeyed.

Casting a slew of spells on the locket, none of which seemed to cause a lick of a difference to the malice that it exuded, Bill tried to determine its nature.

"It's a class D-H object," he informed Fleur, using some curse-breaker parlance. "Necromantic object, level six; high level Dark Magic, certainly fatal, may cause possession," he continued, as Fleur took that down on a conjured sheet of paper with a conjured pencil. "It is to be immediately destroyed. It must be opened before destruction can be attempted. Password locks have been employed. Password is not in any known language so far encountered or documented by Gringotts' curse-breakers."

"Bill?"

"Not now, Harry," Fleur impatiently snapped. She was worried.

"Er...maybe we might need to use Parseltongue? It's Slytherin's locket, isn't it?"

Bill looked comical as his hands, which were weaving a tapestry of magic around the locket, stopped in midair, while Fleur looked at him with some awe, and a lot of annoyance at herself.

"Right," the oldest Weasley son muttered. "That has to be it."

Harry nodded and stood back. Knowing that something is very much out of one's league is an important part of both wisdom and valour.

"What are you waiting for?" Fleur asked.

"Doesn't he have to prepare or something?"

"He already has. What do you think he was doing all this while?"

"I thought he was trying to open it."

"He was, but safety comes first, Harry," Fleur pointed out with a shake of her head. "He tried opening after everything else."

"Oh." Feeling a bit self-conscious, Harry cleared his throat and hissed, " _Open_."

The locket sprung open. And very anticlimactically, a dark ichor was drawn out of it, wailing and writhing, into the magic Bill had cast. It was a hideous sound to hear, almost like it was a person dying painfully. As the ichor was drawn from it, the metal crumpled inwards, almost as if Bill's spell was an advanced form of the Dementor's Kiss which had leeched out whatever life was in the locket, if at all. A few of the embedded emeralds even broke apart, such was the force of the action.

"It's just like the shouts of the diary," Harry muttered.

"That's because they are the same thing, Harry."

Harry's stunned look received only a grim nod in response.

"Cheer up, mate. This is a very, _very_ big thing."

"Is it?"

"It is. Now you have to get me and this locket to Dumbledore at the next lesson. Don't hurry. You don't know what it is. I am showing that I can keep a secret. Till the time that Dumbledore summons me, nobody but you, I and Fleur actually know what that locket does. I am going to get the others to have their memories modified."

Harry nodded. Sometimes it was great to have someone responsible, able, qualified and clever like Bill was to take care of things. He might not show it, but the locket, like the diary, really scared him. Having the support of people like the new Order gave him made him feel less alone, and less scared for his friends.

"Just a question, Bill. Could that locket not have been saved? It's a Founder's object and all..."

"No Harry. Sometimes the taint of Dark Magic is so strong that only absolute destruction can rid an object of it. This was pure dark magic, in its distilled form. There are very few other magics so powerfully dark like this. We couldn't have saved the locket. We _shouldn't_ have saved the locket."

Throwing the locket a look of utmost disgust, Harry nodded.

* * *

That night as she shivered in Bill's arms as the adrenaline after a big fight that brought more knowledge of the danger it posed because of the knowledge of what it was, Fleur was feeling the full brunt of worry as something that a series of incidences were leading her to a very horrible, and from what she knew, completely impossible conclusion.

"What is it?" Bill asked as he engulfed her deeper into his embrace.

"Harry."

"What about him?"

"He said that the locket was of You-Know-Who."

"Yes."

"And his scar hurt."

"Yes."

"It actually was You-Know-Who; or at least his soul."

"Yes."

She scowled at him as he persisted with his monosyllabic answers. Bill smiled at her cheekily. He _was_ a bit miffed that she was thinking of another man in their bed.

"Sorry, love. Tell me."

"Last year, that scar hurt when You-Know-Who felt strong emotions."

This time, without meaning to, his brows furrowed as he repeated, "Yes."

"It means that the scar is an emotional link. And Harry was possessed through that scar, just like Ginny was possessed through the diary."

The colour drained from Bill's face as he realised what his fiancee was leading towards.

"No," he moaned in a strangled whisper.

"We have to help him," she fiercely declared.

"But it's impossible. You know how much preparation..."

"This is magic, Bill. The foulest type of it, but it is still magic. We must always be prepared to be shocked by it."

Both were silent for a while.

"Do you think he knows? He was asking about saving the locket..."

"I don't think so. He just asked about the possibility of saving the locket and agreed when he was told the reason. He has no reason to believe he could be something like it."

"Mon petit frère is nothing like that thing," Fleur stated in a dangerously low voice.

"Of course not," Bill hurriedly agreed in a placating manner, but there really was no force behind his words.

Sleep didn't come easy to either that night, as they worried for their young friend.

* * *

So, a big thing has happened. A common bashing theme has Ron being just like Molly and both being terrible. I've filched the " _Ron is like Molly_ " part, but have tried to explain her rather...egregious behaviour in book 5. Now this will be the last chapter for this story for a while. I am going to work on " **The Great Manipulator** " for the next couple of months exclusively.


	8. Of Trust, Loyalty and Growth

**Of Trust, Loyalty and Growth**

Thanks to all readers, followers, favouriteers, and the following reviewers: **Laurentius Williame** ( **twice** ), **loves to read234** , **surviversp** , **buterflypuss** , **katmom** , **Guest** , **Cheryl** ( **guest** ), and **Tork01.**

Special thanks to **ArtimuousJackson** who corrected me early on about the way some part of an earlier version of chapter 7 led to erroneous conclusions, which could have led this story down the slippery slope of seeming like a bash-fest when it isn't. All your reviews are important, and this is as good an example as any as to why.

 **One more thing that didn't sit well with me was the way the DA was discarded. As you may have observed, I am trying to make it a major plot point. Also the Apparition Notice was put up about a week before the actual time and Dumbledore's lesson also was a week into term. And remember, this is NOT a bashing story. The intent is to portray how his existing positive relationships evolve – not their destruction, and the formation of new ones.**

* * *

The return to Hogwarts was amidst Molly's tears. Percy had been accidentally splattered with parsnip and had left after the Minister in a huff, something that none of the Weasley siblings thought was a big loss. Well, Harry didn't count at that moment. It was not a sentiment Molly shared and it had become evident through sudden tears every now and then.

"You are strangely silent," Fred had remarked. "Don't you think the parsnip was a rather fetching addition to his face? He looked prettier after that."

His twin and younger siblings cackled madly at that. Harry didn't share their humour. They simply didn't understand. He couldn't even wish they could.

If something happened to Percy, who the Weasleys were irritated with for turning his back on them, Harry doubted they would be less devastated than if something happened to say, Fred. Tumultuous the relationship might be, but Harry honestly wished they never found themselves wondering "what if" as he did every day about the mirror Sirius had given him.

Remus, however, had understood. Such fights and tiffs seemed flimsy. He had lost James and Lily, lost Sirius, and then regained him, only to lose him again. It is only then that one realises that there is never enough time. Many things were left unsaid, many jokes unshared, many plans half-complete and would never go to fruition, and he was only left with many memories, and wondering what if he had trusted Sirius and chosen to try and find out what really happened all those years ago.

They would never have closure; that much was for sure.

So it was, that Harry had to promise to be careful, had to assure Molly that he had packed his jumper, that he had both his and Ron's lunches before he received a light peck on his forehead as she moved onto Ron. It was only then that Harry realised that Ron's flustered attempts at warding her off were as usual half-hearted or less. She cared. And it was impossible for either of them not to. Molly Weasley wasn't his mother and would never take her place, but that didn't make him any less "hers". And that was enough, really.

* * *

After they all giggled and chortled like pre-teen school-kids at the Fat Lady's predicament (she had taken the highly unadvisable, even for a portrait, risk of drinking through a vat of five hundred year old wine with her friend Violet. She was hung-over) the three almost quickly got down to describing the rather eventful holidays to their friends while they were in the Great Hall.

"Almost" was the operative word, because Lavender caused Ginny to win a bet and smugly take five sickles from a scowling Harry.

With a shriek of "Won-Won!" she descended upon Ron as soon as she saw the group and managed to fuse his mouth to hers. Each of the others saw the look of sheer terror on Ron's face and briefly wondered whether a shield charm for Ron was a good idea – before dismissing it. Getting involved in the couple's drama was not worth the hassle.

"Do I want to know?" Hermione asked as she looked at her two friends.

"Ginny is a girl," Harry shortly retorted.

With slow claps, Hermione shot back, " _Well_ -spotted, Potter," even as Ginny snidely and sarcastically taunted, "I see what makes you such a good seeker. How _ever_ did you find out?" Really, Ginny would have appreciated being noticed as a girl a while ago. That ship had long since sailed. Neville and Luna merely sniggered; anything to keep the sweet little blonde's mind off Ron's struggles.

Harry flicked Ginny's braid into her face. "Congrats, Gin, you can do sarcasm now. You know what I mean. You took undue advantage of knowing how you girls' minds work because you're one, and plundered me of five sickles. You're mean."

"You should've known not to bet against me then," she smugly replied.

"Don't get all bratty, Ginny," Harry growled in a singsong manner. "The Twins may not be here, and Ron well..." There was little to say about that. "I can make life difficult for you and Deanie when you go off to snog!"

He received a punch on the nose for his trouble. "Don't you dare!" she threatened.

"You two must have spent the rest of your holidays fighting like that," Neville exasperatedly butted in. "Give it a rest now."

"Not so much," Harry protested. "We ganged up on the twins too!"

"And then we all ganged up on you and Bill and her highness, before everyone except mum ganged up on Poncy Percy."

Hermione could barely stifle a smile as Harry huffed and Ginny grinned. More than anything, the easy acceptance that Harry found with the Weasleys made her feel happy for him. Her eyes dimmed a bit at the exchange however, and it was only due to his newfound habit of glancing at her every now and then, that Harry caught her in that unguarded moment. He did not prod or press her about it then, though.

They all waited patiently for Ron to be released from the engulfing attention of She-Whose-Love-Cannot-Be-Tamed. That was lame, but well, it had to rhyme a bit with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and that was the best they could come up with. She showed no sign of releasing him anytime soon, however, did Lavender, so they had to intervene. Sometimes, as friends, you have to save your friends from such threats too.

"Er...Lavender..." Harry interrupted, and then blanched and took a step back reflexively. Then remembering that he was a Gryffindor, he continued, "Could we have Ron back please?"

"We are a bit busy," she replied.

Now, normally, Harry would have backed down from that challenge – no need to antagonise such a capricious creature as a girl, after all. But this was meandering into the inappropriate. Catching hold of Ron by the shoulder, just as Bill had done to him when the Minister had visited, Harry steered his best friend away.

"And we were busy as well with truly important matters as well," Harry replied a bit frostily. "Now I understand you are his girlfriend and everything, but this monopolisation of his very existence is not appreciated."

Lavender looked at Ron expectantly, expecting him to countermand Harry. Ron, however, in spite of being taller than either of them, remarkably managed to cower behind Harry. Lavender shot Harry, Hermione and the rest of the Ministry Six a scathing look.

"Some top-secret mission is it?"

"Yes," Harry blithely replied. He almost continued with a biting, "Sorry but you don't have the training for it yet" but instead chose to add a little misdirection. "It has something to do with what happened at the end of last year, and we do not want you unnecessarily embroiled in something we are bearing the brunt of. Sorry, but I honestly believe that you do not need to get involved in it just yet, not when you are blissfully free of those considerations."

Naturally, she assumed that it had something to do with the fight inside the Ministry. With a last venomous look at the lot, Lavender marched off angrily, with her nose in the air.

Ron shuddered a bit before giving Harry a look of heartfelt gratitude. "I can't thank you enough. You're a real mate!"

"Yeah, yeah, save that for when you have to make up a story that is good enough, check that out with each of us, and then grovel to be able to kiss her again."

Ron said nothing, oddly. It almost seemed as if the prospect of not kissing her didn't really bother him much.

When they rejoined the rest, however, Ginny made a huge show of poking his lips with her wand gingerly, pinching his nose and poking at his teeth, before brushing her wand-tip off on his robes, even as Ron tried to stave her away with a spirited, "Geroff!"

"I was just checking whether your teeth rotted with such overflowing sweetness," she innocently said.

"You were saying," Luna reminded in her most forceful manner, as she brought the train back on track.

And so, the three described in great detail the Minister's visit and Dung's success. Harry, being the only one who knew the true extent of the success, kept quiet. It was something that both Luna and Hermione observed. Both knew it was important for Harry had kept to his vow of not keeping anything from them at all other times. So during the discussion, they offered perfunctory responses.

"The nerve of that man!" thundered Hermione. "He has quickly forgotten his time as an Auror and become just another politician!"

Then they spent some time talking about the werewolves, and what Remus had said, and that was that.

Or so he thought.

"What are you hiding?" Luna asked bluntly as she and Hermione descended upon him.

"We found the locket," Harry replied. "It was like Tom's diary, or so Bill said anyway when he destroyed it. It affected both Mrs. Weasley and Ron badly, so their memories have been modified. And well, you know, after the diary, we aren't sure whether it is a good idea for Ginny to know at all. Don't speak about it around them till Dumbledore allows me to, as you know he eventually will because he wants me to share it with Hermione and Ron, when the rest of you will conveniently be around. Better not to stoke the cinder to a fire. Bill's asked me to keep silent about it."

That certainly quelled any further questions.

Hermione, though, was biting her lip as she heard it.

"What?"

"Well you destroyed the diary."

"Yes. I did."

"And Bill said the locket was the same as the diary when he destroyed it."

"I really do understand it when you speak more than one sentence, you know," Harry bit out in a disgruntled manner.

"Yes, well, I am thinking still," Hermione scolded. "So as I was saying – the locket is like the diary, and Dumbledore has the ring, which he showed with the locket which was like the diary."

"So there were _three_ such things like the diary," Luna reiterated. The stress on the word "three" was not lost on the other two. Harry was less than a true beginner by his own reckoning, but even he knew of the significances of certain numbers arithmentically after Bill, Fleur and Hermione had been of such great help during the summer.

"Exactly," replied Hermione. "And well, what was it exactly?"

"Bill called it a necromantic artefact."

"And even after Dumbledore clearly must have destroyed the ring in some manner, after you destroyed the diary, and after Bill destroyed the locket..."

"Even after the destruction of _three_ such things," Harry spoke out aloud as he caught up with the train of thought, "Voldemort is still alive. So how many _has_ he made?"

"He could theoretically make an infinite number of those things," Luna pointed out reasonably. "Until we _know_ what they are, there is little to be gained from speculating. Just because Snorkacks exist doesn't mean we know their food habits for sure."

And that was what staved off panic in the short term.

Hidden behind that, however, remained Harry's very private plea to Mad-Eye which the recently re-commissioned Auror (as more of an investigative and emergency help) had accepted. Harry chose not to burden them with that.

* * *

The mystery of the objects remained at the back of Harry's mind, till a new exciting thing came along. For those coming of age before the end of the school, there were Apparition Tests and the prospects of getting the license if the passed those tests, but the rest of the sixth years had a chance to attend lessons anyway. Some seventh years like Leanne, Katie's friend, who had come of age after their sixth, would be taking the tests as well.

It actually sparked the same sort of awe and frenzy that the first broom-riding lessons in their first year had. The muggle-raised could see the parallels between people being excited about learning to drive and learning apparition. Side-along apparition wasn't easy, so not most people could actually do it, and therefore very few people had the experience of actually apparating or being apparated. But those who knew about it certainly felt wistful and excited in equal measure.

The frenzy, though, got Harry extremely paranoid. It was an excellent chance for Malfoy to get up to his shenanigans. Harry had already set the one being he was sure could remain invisible and keep an eye on Malfoy and was completely trustworthy and somewhat obsessive – Dobby. The elf was quite ecstatic to be of use, and was even more happy to report that "terrible brat is being unhappy as his village friend is being found" and that Malfoy didn't know what to do right now.

That Harry knew of course. Kingsley had contacted them to tell them, that, not only was Rosmerta indeed the accomplice, but also that she was under the Imperius herself. It had given the department a new headache as they hadn't known that someone already under the Imperius could cast the curse on another person. It had made the group's day.

Yet the Apparition lessons and tests were also an excellent way for the DA to mask its own meetings as well, as well as providing them something important to incorporate.

Hermione had insisted upon going through the data on previous attacks that Harry had sourced. She went one step further than his analysis. She got into the statistics and then the patterns. Attacks where there were children in the house rarely needed the Death Eaters to cast the Anti-Apparition Spells. As Side-Along was difficult, and most people splinched when apparating under duress, it was not a popular escape route. This finding told the DA all that they needed to know about how help was slow to arrive or people were not always able to escape. Normal and Side-Along Apparition became a part of their objectives.

The number of meetings per week had already grown before Christmas to nearly three each week, and with many of the members of three of the four Quidditch teams being DA members as well, some extra practice sessions had been converted into light pick-up games to allow more meetings per week by mutual agreement. Everyone cared about Quidditch for it was a very well-liked sport. But everyone cared for the lives of their loved ones, their friends and their own, far more. Quidditch Cups would come and go, and if for some reason the intensity dropped and Slytherin won, well nobody was going to truly care.

The shared sessions and the many people from all three houses coming to watch, though, meant that the DA was bonding closer together as a group of friends. And in troubled times, as Dumbledore had once said, they were only as strong as they were together.

* * *

"Harry, I want to talk to you about something," Anthony discreetly whispered during one of the DA meetings.

"Sure mate," Harry replied as the two walked a bit away.

"Do you know about Stan Shunpike?"

"Yeah, he was the conductor of the Knight Bus. He was falsely implicated..."

"He was caught because he was boasting about knowing who Death Eaters were going to attack and so on," Anthony completed. "I know. I read it in the Prophet. Did you by any chance call the Minister out on that?"

"I did. It's not right, you know. Stan..."

"It is perfectly correct, Harry," Anthony interrupted. "That's what I want to talk to you about." He could see the seed of doubt in Harry's eyes and he decided to nip it before it could sprout. "No. I am not going to play the Devil's Advocate for the Ministry. Apart from arresting Stan, they haven't done anything substantial at all. I am just going to tell you why arresting Stan and giving him a light prison sentence _was_ the right thing to do."

That certainly intrigued Harry.

"To start with, over the Christmas holidays, we were attacked at near shadier parts of the junction of Diagon and Knockturn by people dressed as Death Eaters. The potion bombs and pepper spray stuff work by the way. Mum was able to use them to stop them from kidnapping my sister."

Anthony's sister, Rebecca, was a first year. She was among the DA's youngest recruits, though not official, and was good at spells as her brother was. Harry nodded. Anthony waited for Harry to make what seemed like the obvious connection.

"You're saying dressed as Death Eaters, and that your mum was able to stop the kidnapping attempt. I take it they escaped?"

"No, Harry. They didn't escape. I said exactly what I meant. They were _dressed_ as Death Eaters. They _weren't_ Death Eaters."

"I don't get it. Why would anyone do that? What could they gain?"

"Harry, the world is not divided into good people and Death Eaters," the Ravenclaw patiently explained.

Harry's head snapped towards Anthony as he echoed Sirius' words.

"Not everyone who isn't a Death Eater is good," Anthony continued. "Such people like to take advantage of other people's fears. They like to incite panic. Stan, unfortunately, was one of them. Those people who attacked us weren't Death Eaters, just thugs. But they would have kidnapped Rebecca and the end result would have been the same. Stan's boasts were stupid, probably even incorrect. But it takes little for rumours to spread. Arresting him was as much for his safety, as it was to put a stop to potentially more damaging situations. Do you understand what I am saying?"

Harry did understand. He cast his mind back to their second year when people were selling amulets to prevent the Basilisk – not that anyone knew that was Slytherin's beast – from attacking people, and to the rumours about him being the Heir of Slytherin. Rumours travelled faster than light, after all.

"I do. I really do. I never even thought of this Anthony."

"I figured as much," Anthony wryly replied.

Harry contemplated over the matter for a bit, and Anthony remained by his side as he waited for Harry to say whatever he wanted to.

"Anthony, don't take this the wrong way, okay, but how did you know?"

"How did I know that you had been a bit short with the Minister? The Aurors who arrived on the scene were grumbling about it." At Harry's raised brow in response, Anthony nodded and continued, "Not the most professional behaviour, I am sure, but they see the Minister as one of them. That part of boosting the morale was why he was chosen after Madam Bones was murdered, obviously."

"How'd you know that?"

"My mum is a political analyst; she works with the Embassy. She has a degree, you know. This is one of the most basic things she keeps telling me. A soldier may even fight on an empty stomach for something he truly believes in. And if the Aurors are willing to take his side over the matter, then he must have them convinced that he stands against Voldemort, and that they can and will fight to the very end."

"Oh."

"If I may ask you, what exactly did you say to the Minister?"

It was a question that Harry probably wouldn't have answered before this. But Anthony had proven that he trusted him enough to listen to sense and had tried to reason with him, and more importantly, treated him as one would a trusted friend. He decided to return the trust. He chose to answer.

"I said a lot of things, that, in retrospect, weren't by any means polite. But I also don't think they were incorrect. I told him to delink politics and the 'old families' thing that Fudge had and which the Minister was continuing, to execute the proven and caught Death Eaters, and to try Fudge and Umbridge and all the captured Death Eaters for treason," Harry replied candidly. "But actually, that was after he told me to jump through the Ministry's hoops and promised me that he would put in a good word for me with the Aurors through Umbridge and some Robards person who has succeeded him, before I asked why he never investigated Cedric's death and the case of Sirius Black – my godfather."

The bit about Sirius was in the papers anyway, so he was not revealing private information.

"You vented at him."

Harry nodded a bit sheepishly.

"Well, both of you were a bit idiotic. He was desperate, enough to name Umbridge," and even Anthony couldn't restrain a disgusted grimace at that, "and you were being stubborn."

"What should I do?"

"I cannot say specifically," Anthony temporised. "But I think, if you could talk to the Minister through the right channels, such as Dumbledore, you should apologise, and try to hash out the differences. He was not entirely right – but nor were you. He was not right with what he expected, so consider your boundaries. Just, you know, let him know that you know that this is much bigger than you. He has no reason to bother you then."

Harry nodded again. Put that way, it did make sense.

"Listen, Anthony. If you ever think I am making a stupid mistake or something, call me out on it immediately, okay? I prefer it when people tell me I am wrong and explain things outright."

Anthony gave a short, sharp nod. "I will," he promised. He turned to walk back to the practice but stopped. "And you can call me Tony. My friends do."

Harry nodded back.

As Anthony left, Harry felt a sense of relief and happiness that he hadn't felt so often. He had friends; people who trusted him and whom he could trust back. And the DA – as Luna had said when it had briefly looked like it might not be resumed, it was like having friends. That was off the mark. The DA members really were his friends – more people for whom he would fight, and try to win against Voldemort. And importantly, as Susan seemed to reiterate often, they were more people who'd fight Voldemort by his side. The hope it gave him already made the task seem less daunting.

* * *

Dumbledore was ready with the pensieve in his well-lit office on their appointed day, exactly a week after term started.

"Good evening Harry," the old wizard greeted, before shaking his sleeve to cover more of the dead hand.

For all that Harry knew what it meant, and what it portended, along with his misgivings about many of Dumbledore's decisions, the sight always caused great sorrow. This was a man Harry looked up to. Learning to be mentally prepared for his impending Death didn't make it easier to accept. Harry's turmoil and worry seemed quite evident on his face.

To draw him away from the subject, Dumbledore touched upon another subject. "I heard that you were paid a personal visit from the Minister..."

The Order had agreed that it was best that they tell Dumbledore about the visit before he found out from someone else.

"Yes. We did not part on the best of terms. I was not happy with quite a few of the things he has done – or hasn't – and he is not too happy with me either."

"We seem to sail the same boat where the Minister is concerned Harry. I implore you to try and rise above your anguish, as I strive to do."

Harry couldn't help but grin. Dumbledore always did have a way with words. But his mirth dimmed away soon as he remembered what Anthony had said.

"He wanted me to be the Ministry's puppet," he said bluntly, "and tell the world how the Ministry is effective."

"So he is still persisting with Fudge's idea."

Harry's rage at that man's name was fully evident on his face for a scant few moments.

"I told him exactly what I thought of that," Harry told Dumbledore honestly, going on to tell his Headmaster exactly what he had demanded from the man, and his responses.

"Do you not believe that is extreme, Harry? Treason, once proven, only results in execution. Do you honestly believe that they do not deserve a chance to redeem themselves?" The question was not in a disappointed tone, but in curiosity.

Harry was sure of this. This was an argument he had fine-tuned "I let Peter Pettigrew stay alive that night in the Shrieking Shack, sir. If at all, it is my mistake has led us to this situation; to Cedric's, Sirius' and countless other deaths. The former Minister and Umbridge betrayed our world and it has cost us precious time. They do not deserve another chance. And I am sure of the Death Eaters also. They had a chance after they bought their way out. People like Lucius Malfoy attempted to murder children, sir, never mind that it was unproven. They deserve death."

"And do you believe that you are worthy enough a judge to pass such a judgement?"

"No sir. But I have learnt that mercy is a great gift – the greatest that one man can bestow on another. I have learnt that I am not worthy of being merciful towards another."

"Do you not believe that age or circumstances might mean something to that end?"

Harry remained quiet, momentarily. "Sir, you once told me that it was our choices, and not what we are, that define us. And isn't the most crucial time to make the correct choice the one where circumstances seem difficult?"

The ever-present twinkle in Dumbledore's eyes dimmed. He learnt that somehow their paths had diverged. It was to be expected, after all. Harry was growing, and forming his own beliefs, and they were stronger than he expected them to be. And he was not compromised emotionally in the way that Dumbledore had been when he fought Grindelwald. His time had ended, and, as he had told Kingsley, Harry was their best hope to win. Change was inevitable. Still, while the decisions rested with him, Dumbledore was going to make an attempt, however desperate, to rescue those among his students who had strayed from their respective situation. Harry, a contemporary of the strayed children, could not be expected to look at the matter from the same point of view. And he considered this sentiment to extend towards Severus also, at least on his own part.

"The Prophecy means that your words and your demands and decisions carry a lot of weight Harry, though I would disagree about you not being worthy of bestowing mercy, as well as with your contention that all those deaths that Voldemort has caused since his return are in any way your fault. I must advise you t be careful with what you ask for."

"I have since realised that sir. It was brought to my notice that Stan Shunpike's imprisonment was not, as I believed it to naively be, unjustified."

And that intrigued Dumbledore enough to warrant another explanation. The explanation he received drove the point about changes home for the Headmaster.

"Do you truly accept this explanation, Harry?"

"I have reason to do so, sir. After all, with all that happened during my second, fourth and fifth years here, I have an unfortunately intimate knowledge of how rumours affect people."

And that Harry did. Dumbledore closed his eyes, partly in self-recrimination and partly in regret. He had failed the boy again, in yet another way. It was regrettable that Harry did have that experience.

"You seem to be forming new friendships, Harry," he remarked, with a bit of forced joviality.

"The Dum- Defence Association," Harry corrected himself and he thought he caught the Headmaster's twinkle again, "was a group of friends who studied together, sir. After all, we only followed what you once told us – we are only strong as we stand united." He hastily looked away. Dumbledore had to have some irritation about the fact that the group's other name was Dumbledore's Army, something that had forced him from the castle at such a crucial time.

Dumbledore realised with a jolt that he really had to recalibrate his assessment of Harry. That he would reach out to people, and listen to them and contemplated over his actions, spoke of a growth that he had not expected. And it also spoke of people's trust in him. Nothing made him as happy that day as that realisation.

"You can refer to your group as Dumbledore's Army, Harry. It was a great honour for me, I assure you. It speaks a lot about your belief in me, as misplaced as I sometimes believe it to be."

And that was the crux of it, wasn't it? Harry did believe in Dumbledore – he sometimes either couldn't understand the logic of or found some of his decisions to be very wrong. That didn't mean he distrusted Dumbledore in any way.

"That may be why the Minister accused me of being your man through and through."

"That was rude."

"I informed him that I didn't mind being considered so."

And he didn't. He realised that that the context of his questions and doubts about Dumbledore's actions mattered, and, in the end, he would be, as the Minister accused. Perhaps that was what loyalty meant – to have some doubts about someone's actions, but still believe in the person. Like many things, loyalty seemed a bit irrational.

It was also why he worried, after all. If Dumbledore was dying, he was leaving them all leaderless and without direction, an idea that caused him quite some distress, which Fawkes' soft musical cry didn't quite alleviate.

To his surprise and **intense embarrassment, he suddenly realized that Dumbledore's bright blue eyes looked rather watery** , and he had to look away.

 **"** **I am very touched, Harry."**

Wishing to change the subject somehow, Harry spoke about the Scrimgeour matter again.

By now, with his control regained, Dumbledore assured, "I shall endeavour to set matters straight on that account, without allowing the Minister to overstep his bounds, on your behalf, if you would agree."

"Thank you, sir."

"Is there anything else you might want to say?"

Harry considered the matter of Snape and Malfoy. But he knew what Dumbledore would say. It would only be a waste of time.

"No sir. I am sorry the lesson has been so delayed."

"And for important topics, Harry," Dumbledore disagreed, "which you feel you must bring to my notice, no delay is unnecessary. I shall be available to you if you should so wish to tell me anything else, as always, but now I believe you're right, and we must proceed to the two memories I wish to show you."

AS he poured the memory into the pensieve, Dumbledore went ahead with a slight recapitulation of what they had previously seen in the memories. Dumbledore admitted that he had given young Tom a chance for remorse, and Harry resented the idea as well as Dumbledore's need to trust even undeserving people, till he remembered Riddle's diatribe in the Chamber when the shade had recounted that Dumbledore didn't trust him. Dumbledore confirmed as much.

The first memory, which Dumbledore showed was that of the first meeting between Tom Riddle and his Uncle Morfin (whose memory it was) discussing in Parseltongue about Tom's likeness to the muggle father he had never known, before it dissolved into a blur.

Tom had framed his uncle for the murder of the last three Riddles, but not before stealing the Gaunt Ring.

The other memory however, caused Harry to wrinkle his nose in disgust, something that Dumbledore saw and chuckled at.

"Why the expression, Harry?" he gently asked.

"It, well, it looks like it is curdled or something."

Dumbledore's attention snapped back to the memory and he held it against the light. "I suppose the word you are looking for is congealed, but semantics aside, you are right." He held out his wand arm for Harry to grasp. "I want you to keep a hold on my arm at all times Harry. In all my years, I have encountered fudged memories on rare occasions. The effects were disconcerting to say the least."

Harry obeyed without second thought. It was Slughorn's memory.

And sure enough, there was a little of the typical Tom Riddle-esque flattery. There was an obvious problem when Slughorn declared that Riddle would go bad. And then Riddle asked for that word – Horcruxes. Again, the memory was overrun by a white fog and Slughorn impeding it with his words.

When they returned from the pensieve, Dumbledore looked serene, but it was obvious that he was troubled.

"Professor Slughorn has tampered with – quite shoddily, I must add – with his memory," Dumbledore explained, with some urgency. "This memory is of quite some essence, as you may well understand. The shoddy reworking though, gives me hope. The original memory lies beneath it. And so, Harry, I must, for the first time, give you homework."

"Sir?" asked Harry.

"You are to retrieve the true memory from Horace."

Harry was taken aback. "But couldn't you use Veritaserum or Legillimency?"

"Both will be ill-advised against a man of his calibre and skills, Harry. It may even cause him to leave Hogwarts, with the memory, I might add. It will be an entirely undesirable set of circumstances."

Harry was silent for a few moments. "Sir, if I may ask a few questions..."

"Ask away."

"What did you say to try and get the memory?"

Dumbledore gave him a smile as an old man would give his particularly favoured grandchild. "Quite an astute question, Harry," he commended. "I, in ways I suppose you can imagine, attempted to prevail upon his conscience and upon his duty to the magical world, and requested his help fighting Voldemort."

And Harry could well imagine it.

"Why did he tamper the memory?"

"I suppose there could be a multitude of reasons, I am sure, but mark his words, Harry. If he were scared, he would not have said those words. No. He wants to hide the fact he answered Tom at all, and wishes to be seen in a better light. He is ashamed of what and how much he told Tom."

"Just one last question, sir," Harry continued before Dumbledore could dismiss him for the night. "What are Horcruxes? I could gather by the vehement reaction and by Tom's interest that it is the darkest of magic. But how and why did Professor Slughorn even know about it?"

And at that, Dumbledore's eyes dimmed alarmingly. "I assure you I shall answer these last questions in due time, Harry. I need to find some answers myself. Goodnight...and good luck. "

With that, Harry found himself dismissed for the night.

It was only later that he realised that he had not told Dumbledore about the most important thing of them all.

* * *

As soon as Harry returned to the Gryffindor Tower, where Hermione, Ron, Ginny and Neville waited, he hurried over and grabbed a piece of parchment and penned a letter to Bill. He made sure to mention the details of the lesson and then asked Hermione to cast every protective charm she could remember on it.

"Harry?"

"Please, just do it."

She complied and he sent it off with Hedwig.

"Slughorn told Tom about some sort of Dark Magic that he needed. We have a word now for it, and given the way Dumbledore seemed, I would wager it is to be kept in the strictest confidence."

"What is the word?"

"Horcrux."


End file.
